Hyderabad, April 6 (IANS): The Congress, on Saturday, announced Narayanan Sri Ganesh as its candidate for the upcoming byelection to Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly constituency in Telangana.

AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge has approved the candidature of Sri Ganesh, following his recent switch from BJP to the Congress party.

Sri Ganesh had previously contested on a BJP ticket for the same seat in the November 30, 2023 elections but was unsuccessful.

Scheduled to coincide with the Lok Sabha polls on May 13, the byelection to Secunderabad Cantonment, an Assembly segment of the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency, was necessitated by the tragic demise of sitting MLA G. Lasya Nanditha of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in a road accident on February 23.

The 37-year-old was the daughter of BRS leader and five-time MLA from Secunderabad constituency, G. Sayanna, who passed away on February 19, last year due to illness.

Nanditha was elected in the elections held on November 30, 2023. She defeated her closest competitor, Sri Ganesh, who was then with BJP, by a margin of 17,169 votes.

Banking on the sympathy factor in the byelections to retain the seat, BRS is likely to field Nanditha’s sister, Nivedita.

The byelection is significant for the Congress party which has a slender majority in the state Assembly and will be looking to make inroads into Hyderabad as it failed to secure any seats in the state capital in the Assembly polls.

The Congress party had won 64 seats in the 119-member Assembly in 2023 polls. However, it drew a blank in the Greater Hyderabad region, which sent 24 MLAs.

The byelection is also crucial for Congress as Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has been representing the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat since 2019.