The Bharatiya Janata Party has ignored its senior leader and sitting MP Bandaru Dattatreya for Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency and instead fielded G. Kishan Reddy.
Dattatreya, also a former union minister, did not figure in the list of candidates announced by the BJP.
Secunderabad is among 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana for which the BJP declared its candidates.
Kishan Reddy, who tasted defeat in the recent Telangana Assembly elections, earlier served as the president of BJP’s state unit.
In 2014, Secunderabad was the only seat in Telangana won by the BJP. Dattatreya, who represented this constituency four times, was a Minister in the Modi government as well as earlier in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Congress leader and former minister D. K. Aruna, who joined the BJP on Wednesday, was named as the candidate from Mahabubnagar.
Other candidates are Ramachandra Rao (Malkajgiri), Bangaru Shruti (Nagarkurnool), Bandi Sanjay (Karimnagar), D. Aravind (Nizamabad), G, Jitendra Kumar (Nalgonda), P V Shyamsunder Rao (Bhongir), Chinta Sambamurthy (Warangal) and Hussain Naik (Mahabubabad).
