Congress senior leader and former Union minister Tikkavarapu Subbarami Reddy has said that he would contest from the Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency in 2014.Speaking to the media here on Sunday, Subbarami Reddy said that Union Minister Purandhareswari, who represents the constituency now was a good friend of his. He said that it was he who had invited Purandhareswari into Congress and offered her his Visakhapatnam constituency which he represented in the Lok Sabha. He said that if the party high command directs him, he was ready to contest from Visakhapatnam in 2014. Reddy also said that he would fulfill all the promises he made in Nellore where he had unsuccessfully contested against the YSR Congress candidate Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy.
It may be mentioned here that there has been a dispute between Purandhareswari and TSR, who both have been insisting on the Visakhapatnam constituency in the 2014 elections. To avert collision, the Congress high command made TSR to contest from the Nellore constituency in the recent by-election. Had he won the election, he would have retained that constituency. But, he lost by a huge margin of around 2.9 lakh votes despite his best efforts. He is unlikely to accept Nellore ticket in 2014 to face Raja Mohan Reddy once again.
RS 30 CRORE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF KGH
Subbarami Reddy also said that an amount of Rs 30 crores would be collected from the ONGC and BHEL for developing the King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam. He said this was in addition to the Rs 50 crores already announced by the Public Sector organizations. He also said that he was bringing pressure on the Centre to keep the Visakhapatnam airport open round-the-clock. He said this should be possible in two months.
Referring to reports about privatization of the Visakha steel plant, he said the Centre had assured him that there was no such move.