YSR Congress senior leader Konathala Ramakrishna said here on Thursday that he has not yet decided on contesting in the May elections either to the Lok Sabha or to the State Assembly, but asserted that he would not move out of his home town Anakapalle.
“Death or victory, I will decide in Anakapalle. I am not a leader who migrates (looking for safe seats). There is still time and I have not decided yet on entering the poll fray. And there is no surprise if I don’t contest also,” Mr. Ramakrishna told reporters after attending a meeting held here to mark the entry of former Congress corporator P.L.N. Patnaik (Daniel) into YSR Congress.
He ruled out contesting from Elamanchili Assembly segment and said he never though of it. The candidature of Pragada Nageswara Rao was announced for the constituency by party president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy during his tour, he reminded.
The YSR Congress leader did not believe in the pre-poll surveys done by some new channels which were also published by newspapers. “We don’t get depressed if the survey did not favour us or get overjoyed if it predicted our win because Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy is sure to win and form the government whatever might be the combinations of the alliances against us.”
No belief in surveysThe news channels for which the survey was done-CNN-IBN and ETV (which did not give favourable prediction for YSR Congress) were taken over by the Reliance group by spending thousands of crores of rupees and that itself indicates how reliable they were, he said.
Mr. Ramakrishna also found the method of survey inadequate since only 20,000 people across the country, including 1,400 in the combined Andhra Pradesh were approached. This survey also showed a 12 per cent drop in popularity of the YSR Congress in recent times and gain for Telugu Desam but did not show towards which party it had swung. The Neilson survey covered two lakh people, he said but added that survey results would not boost or dampen YSRC’s mood.
