Four Rajya Sabha members from Andhra Pradesh sworn in; Jana Sena gets its first seat

Four members elected unopposed from Andhra Pradesh were sworn in as members of the Rajya Sabha by Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan on Thursday (June 25, 2026), giving the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) all of the State’s seats that fell vacant this month. Three are of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Sana Satish Babu, Vijay Chintakayala and Bhashyam Rama Krishna, and one of the Jana Sena Party (JSP), Lingamaneni Ramesh.

The four were declared elected unopposed on June 11, after no other candidates filed nominations within the stipulated time. The seats had fallen vacant with the retirement of YSR Congress Party members Alla Ayodhya Rami Reddy, Parimal Nathwani and Pilli Subhas Chandra Bose, and the end of Mr. Satish Babu’s earlier term. For Mr. Satish Babu, it is a second consecutive term.

Speaking after the swearing-in ceremony, Mr. Satish Babu thanked TDP National President and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and IT and HRD Minister Nara Lokesh for reposing faith in him and entrusting him with the responsibility of representing the people of Andhra Pradesh in Parliament.

In a social media post, Mr. Ramesh said he had assumed office as a Rajya Sabha member and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena Party president and Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan for the opportunity.

Sana Satish Babu (TDP)

A native of Thammavaram, near Kakinada, Mr. Satish Babu is an Electricity Board employee turned businessman who later expanded his operations abroad. He is the honorary secretary of the Andhra Cricket Association (ACA), re-elected to the post for the 2025-28 term, and oversaw the upgrade of the ACA-VDCA stadium in Visakhapatnam before the 2025 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup. His earlier Rajya Sabha term, through a short-term vacancy, ended this month; renominated by the TDP, he was declared elected unopposed on June 11, 2026.

Vijay Chintakayala (TDP)

The TDP State General Secretary and a former president of its youth wing, Telugu Yuvatha, Mr. Chintakayala is known for his organisational work in the party. A native of Narsipatnam, he is the son of Chintakayala Ayyannapatrudu, the Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He holds a master’s degree in political management from George Washington University in the United States and another in political governance from the MIT School of Government, Pune.

Bhashyam Rama Krishna (TDP)

Mr. Bhashyam, an educationist, began as a mathematics teacher and founded the Bhashyam Educational Institutions in 1993. He is chairman of the Bhashyam group, which runs more than 160 branches across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, teaching about 1.6 lakh students. A native of Enikapadu in Palnadu district, he runs the Bhashyam Peramma Charitable Trust, named after his mother.

Lingamaneni Ramesh (JSP)

A Vijayawada-based industrialist, Mr. Ramesh, is the founder of the LEPL Group and was chairman of Air Costa, the regional airline launched from Vijayawada in 2013. He has been close to the JSP and its president, Mr. Pawan Kalyan, since 2015, and helped coordinate the Jana Sena-TDP-BJP alliance in the 2024 elections. His election gives the Jana Sena its first seat in the Rajya Sabha since the party was founded in 2014.