Hyderabad, Oct 21 (IANS) Lankala Deepak Reddy on Tuesday filed nomination as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for the bypoll to the Jubilee Hills Assembly seat here.

He reached the Shaikpet MRO office in a rally to submit his nomination papers to Returning Officer P. Sairam.

Before leaving for the MRO office, Deepak Reddy, along with Union Minister for Coal and Mines G. Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar and state BJP president Ramchander Rao, performed puja at Vijayadurga temple in Venkatagiri.

The Central ministers, the state BJP president, MP Raghunandan Rao and other leaders participated in the rally.

A large number of BJP workers, carrying party flags, participated in the rally, which passed through various parts of the constituency to reach the MRO office.

Deepak Reddy had contested unsuccessfully from Jubilee Hills in 2023.

Maganti Gopinath of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) had defeated former Indian cricket captain and Congress candidate Mohammed Azharuddin by 16,337 votes to win the seat for the third consecutive term.

In a multi-cornered contest, Gopinath had secured 80,549 votes while Azharuddin had polled 64,212 votes. Deepak Reddy was in third position with 25,866 votes.

Gopinath’s demise in June this year necessitated the by-election. The BRS has fielded Gopinath’s wife, Maganti Sunitha, while the ruling Congress party announced Naveen Yadav as its candidate.

As per the schedule announced by the Election Commission of India, Tuesday (October 21) is the last date for filing nominations. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on October 22, and withdrawal of candidature will be allowed until October 24.

The polling will be held on November 11, while the counting of votes will take place on November 14.

Meanwhile, the state BJP president campaigned in the constituency on Tuesday. He interacted with local people.

In the midst of the campaign, he had breakfast at a local hotel and met local people. He interacted with them to know their opinions and discussed local issues.

–IANS

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