By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Hyderabad: Three Muslim candidates from major political parties, along with seven other candidates, got elected to unexpectedly tranquil legislative council elections in Andhra Pradesh. This election was for 10 MLC seats which were to be directly elected by Legislative Assembly members.
But yesterday, the last day of filing nomination papers, the major four political parties of Andhra Pradesh fielded nominations of only 10 candidates. Congress, major ruling party fielded nomination papers of five candidates, Telugu Desam Party major opposition party nominated three candidates, whereas Telangana Rashtriya Samithi and YSR Congress fielded one candidate each. As only ten candidates filed nomination papers for ten seats, all of them were declared elected unanimously at Monday evening.
Senior congress leader and former state minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir, former wakf board chairman and TDP minority leader Mohammed Saleem, and TRS minority leader Mehmood Ali are among ten unopposed elected candidates.
If congress would have fielded sixth candidate as it was planning to do, then it could have been an open indirect preferential voting election in the assembly. But congress by fielding only five candidates tried to play it safe. This move of Congress benefited TRS and YSR Congress who otherwise would have found difficult to arrange at least 28 MLA votes for a single candidate.
This MLC election was important for all the major political parties as it became their solo chance before 2014 state elections to pursue different communities politically. All the elected ten candidates nominated by four major parties are from Muslim, Dalit and OBC communities which form nearly 50% of state population.