It’s Official: Vangaveeti Radha Joins Janasena

Putting rest to the rumours, Vangaveeti Radha has formally joined the Jana Sena Party today at the party central office. Radha was accompanied by Praneeth Pramod from Tirupati who also joined the party today. Jana Sena party chief and AP Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan welcomed them into the party and offered them the Party Kanduvas. 

If reports are anything to go by, Vangaveeti Radha’s name is being considered for the Vijayawada Mayor post, while Praneeth Pramod may be considered for the Tirupati Mayor post.

Vangaveeti Radha was first elected as an MLA in 2004 from Congress party. He later joined the PRP in 2008 and contested the 2009 Assembly election from Vijayawada East constituency and was defeated in the hands of the Congress. In 2014, Radha had formally joined the YSRCP and contested in 2014 elections on YSRCP ticket and was defeated in the hands of TDP’s Gadde Rammohan Rao. Radha served as the Vijayawada City President and Coordinator. However, Radha was denied Vijayawada East constituency ticket in 2019 polls and this led to Radha leaving the YSRCP. 

Radha has joined the TDP in 2019 right before the 2019 Assembly elections. Since then, Radha has been staying in the TDP, but not very active. 

However, with the Vijayawada Mayor post now falling under the unreserved category, discussions are underway over the possibility of Jana Sena getting the post as part of seat-sharing arrangements among the alliance partners. This has led to speculation that Radha Krishna could be the party’s mayoral candidate.

Meanwhile, State Election Commissioner Anil Chandra Poonetha announced the schedule for local body elections on Wednesday. The government has also issued gazette notifications finalising reservations for mayoral posts, municipal chairperson posts and Zilla Parishad chairperson posts.

At the same time, leaders of the ruling alliance are holding discussions on seat-sharing arrangements for the local body elections.

Jana Sena leaders Nadendla Manohar, Lingamaneni Ramesh and Hariprasad held talks with CM Chandrababu Naidu at the Chief Minister’s camp office. Andhra Pradesh TDP president Palla Srinivasa Rao and Minister Nimmala Ramanaidu also participated in the meeting. 

The final allocation of mayoral posts and the selection of candidates are awaited.