With the geographic area being extensive and the nature of campaign intensive, nominees to the North Andhra Graduates’ Constituency for the Legislative Council election are leaving no stone unturned in the campaign with focus on meeting voters.
First off the block
Clearly, independent nominee A. Aja Sarma has the advantage of head start being first off the block having started his campaign in October, as soon as his candidature was announced by the Forum for Development of North Andhra (FDNA). With various associations and unions supporting, he is directly meeting the voters.
“I have toured all the 115 mandals in the region, and since October met nearly 35,000 voters directly,” says Mr. Sarma.
His association with the FDNA for nearly two years and dealing with issues such as irrigation in North Andhra, nuclear power plant at Kovvada, and Uddhanam chronic kidney disease, addressing seminars and workshops have also made him familiar, says treasurer of the forum B.B. Ganesh.
P.V.N. Madhav of the BJP, who is supported by the TDP, is well aware of the race against time when he observed at a coordination meeting that his campaign was starting when Mr. Sarma’s campaign had almost ended.
His campaign is quite high profile with State BJP president and MP K. Haribabu participating, and Ministers Kamineni Srinivas and P. Manikyala Rao coordinating with the TDP Ministers, MPs, and MLAs in North Andhra and constituency in-charges.
Mr. Srinivas said that the BJP and the TDP were working in perfect coordination and getting good response from the voters during the campaign.
Besides, two teams for each of the 224 booths, including one of the Parivar, are going to voters.
“To make up for lack of time, we are responding to missed call from voters to a toll-free number, and also those visiting are using an app to get details of voters and send my details to them,” Mr. Madhav said, adding so far 48,000 responses have been received. To cover the city that has 70,000 of the 1.55 lakh voters, in charges have been named for each of the seven Assembly constituencies, and under them 20-30 volunteers are working for each of the 80 booths, elaborates BJP city president M. Nagendra.
Congress nominee Yedla Adiraju is contesting for the second time in a row. Having decided to contest long time back, he says he has been campaigning for several months now.
With equal importance to all the regions, the focus of his campaign is on the discontent among various sections, he said.
Senior journalist and independent nominee V.V. Ramana Murthy, supported by Lok Satta, started his campaign three months ago right from the time of enrolment. “I am directly going to various sections through groups of teachers, artists and various people’s organisations both in the city and rest of the region,” he says.
Being an independent, he felt he had to meet as many voters as possible unlike the others.
A total of 30 candidates are in the fray for the election on March 9.
