Hyderabad, April 12 (IANS): The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Friday announced Marepalli Sudhir Kumar as its candidate for the Warangal Lok Sabha constituency.

BRS President and former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao approved the candidature of Sudhir Kumar, who is currently the Zilla Parishad Chairman of Hanamkonda district, after consultation with BRS leaders from the Warangal district.

Sudhir Kumar, who comes from the Madiga community, has been active in the Telangana movement and working with KCR, as Rao is popularly called, since 2001.

The BRS had earlier announced Dr Kadiyam Kavya as its candidate for Warangal, which is a reserved seat for Scheduled Castes. However, in a huge shock to the party, Kavya pulled out from the contest on March 28. Days later, she joined the ruling Congress, along with her father and BRS MLA Kadiyam Srihari.

The Congress named Kaviya as its candidate for the same seat in the May 13 election.

Srihari, a prominent SC leader who had started his political journey in the 1980s with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), had also served as a minister in the cabinets of N.T. Rama Rao and Chandrababu Naidu in combined Andhra Pradesh. He had also served as TDP General Secretary and Politburo member. A four-time MLA from Station Ghanpur in Warangal district, he joined the TRS (now BRS) in 2013. He was elected to Lok Sabha from Warangal on a TRS ticket in 2014 but the next year, KCR inducted him into the Cabinet as Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister.