Defeated Andhra RS candidate to move court

HYDERABAD, March 29: The Congress-backed independent candidate T Venkatram Reddy, who was trounced narrowly by the ruling Telugu Desam in Saturday’s Rajya Sabha elections, today said he would file a writ petition in the high court on Monday against the decision of the returning officer in declaring the TDP candidate as elected. Speaking to reporters here, Reddy who lost to the TDP candidate K Kalavenkat Rao in the final round by 0.14 points alleged that the state legislative assembly secretary C Venkatesham, also the returning officer, had acted in haste and declared Rao elected contrary to election rules.

He alleged that though he had majority at the end of the fourth round, the returning officer did not declare him elected and instead went ahead with fifth and sixth round which he described as “illegal and contrary to rules”.

In the close finish, TDP and its ally CPI won all the six seats from Andhra Pradesh. The winners were P Prabhakar Reddy, C Ramachandriah, R Ramachandriah, Yedlapati Venkatrao, KKalavenkat Rao (TDP) and D Nagabushan Rao (CPI).