Pawan Kalyan's party fields candidates for 8 seats in Telangana

Hyderabad, Nov  (IANS) The Jana Sena Party (JSP) led by actor-politician Pawan Kalyan on Tuesday announced candidates for eight seats for the Telangana Assembly elections scheduled on November 30.

The JSP, which is an an ally of the BJP, has fielded candidates in Kukatpally, Tandur, Kodad, Nagarkurnool, Khammam, Kothagudem, Wyra (ST) and Ashwaraopet (ST).

Four of these seats are in undivided Khammam district. It is not clear if the JSP will field more candidates.

The list was released hours after Pawan Kalyan shared dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a BJP public meeting in Hyderabad.

The BJP has already announced candidates for 100 seats out of the 119 Assembly constituencies in the state.

With the JSP declaring candidates for eight seats, 11 seats are remaining. The BJP may leave another 2-3 seats for the JSP.

Pawan Kalyan’s party had plans to field candidates in 32 constituencies. Its leaders were keen to contest from many segments in and around Hyderabad, which have sizeable migrant voters from Andhra Pradesh.

When the BJP leaders had earlier approached Pawan Kalyan with a request to campaign for their candidates, he had informed them that he is under pressure from his cadres in Telangana to contest at least 30 seats.

The actor later met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. After some rounds of talks between Pawan Kalyan and state BJP leaders, they decided to have an electoral alliance.

However, the JSP leader has drastically reduced the number of seats. The final number may not even be half of what the JSP originally wanted to contest.