Hyderabad: The episode of Jupudi Prabhakar Rao, where he failed to file his nomination for the AP Legislative Council polls being a voter in Telangana, is a wake-up call for other AP leaders to change their voter registration from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh. This includes AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh. The Representation of the People’s Act 1951, Sections 5 and 6 clearly mandates “the contestant shall be an elector from any Assembly constituency in that state”.
 
However, this rule is not applicable if anyone wants to contest Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats. There is no threat of disqualification to Mr  Naidu now, as he is an elector from Khairatabad Assembly segment in Hyderabad and elected from Kuppam Assembly segment in AP, since the 2014 general elections were held much before the bifurcation of AP.
 
Now that Telangana and AP are separate states, if Mr Naidu wants to contest next Assembly polls in AP, he needs to get his voter identity registered in AP. He will become ineligible if he continues to be voter in Telangana, a senior lawyer, who wished to be anonymous, told this newspaper.