The Kakinada Assembly constituency with two ports – Anchorage port and private deep water port – is all set to be the playfield for the former people’s representatives this election season. Leaders from both the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) represented the constituency in the Legislative Assembly in the past. After the reorganisation, this segment comprised 44 divisions of the Kakinada Municipal Corporation.
Dwarampudi Chandrasekhar Reddy, a close associate of Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, elected as Congress MLA in 2009 polls and shifted his loyalty to the YSRC soon after the emergence of the political outfit. After resigning to his post, Mr. Reddy launched a campaign for the general elections 2014 and intensified it after the release of poll notifications.
After a lot of dillydallying, the TDP fielded former MLA Vanamadi Venkateswara Rao (Konda Babu), while the Congress finalised the candidature of Pantham Venkateswara Rao (Nanaji), a close associate of Union Minister M.M. Pallam Raju, for the seat. But, the close fight seems to be between the former MLAs Mr. Reddy and Mr. Konda Babu, as Mr. Nanaji is known to very a few people. The anti-Congress wave is quite visible in the city, as the party could not find contestants for the elections held to the local bodies recently.
Lack of infrastructureThe segment has 1,89,038 voters with 92,937 males and 96,073 females. Despite having two ports, poor basic amenities have been plaguing the city. Though it is a planned city, basic amenities like roads, drinking water and drainage facility badly needs improvement, which, in all probability, will be the major issues for all the candidates. Majority of the roads require an immediate re-carpeting and the residents in many areas have no municipal tap water connections. Even as the city is not fit for the underground drainage project, no alternate mechanism has been worked out so far.
All the political parties are focusing on the port workers, considering them as major vote bank. The workers have a long list of unsolved problems and keen on getting concrete promises from the leaders.
