After hectic campaign for municipal elections in the urban areas, now its the turn of the rural side in Chittoor district with round-the-clock activity by the political leaders for the mandal and zilla parishad elections, scheduled on April 7 and 11 in two phases. After a gap of 19 years, once again the polls are going to take place on party symbols.
The Congress has come to face dismal prospects for the second time now, the first time being in 1995 parishad polls when its symbol went missing in the ballot papers due to technical problems then. The Congress which was routed in 1994 elections by the TDP failed to concentrate on the parishad elections the next year. With none getting the B-forms due to technical reasons, all the candidates had to contest as independents. After 19 years, there are no takers for the B-forms from the Congress. After frantic efforts, the party fielded 27 candidates in 65 ZPTCs, while the rest of the seats have no representation at all. Out of 901 MPTC seats, the Congress is in fray in 107 only.
This situation has led to a tight fight between the Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress in all the ZPTCs and MPTCs. In various mandals, locally influential leaders of both parties have fielded their spouses in view of the ZP Chairperson post reserved for woman-general category. The Telugu Desam has fielded Vani Chandra from Chittoor rural ZPTC for the chairperson post, but Tamballapalle former MLA Kalicharla Prabhakar Reddy is said to be eyeing the coveted post for his spouse Indiramma, who is contesting from Peddamandyam ZPTC. The names of two women are making rounds in the YSRC for the post, including Kousalya from Pakala mandal, and Aruna from Nindra mandal.
