With the Election Commission of India declaring May 13 as the polling day for the Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh, the State is all set to witness what is being referred to as the ‘mother of all elections’. A total of 4.09 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to vote.
These elections will witness a direct fight between the ruling YSR Congress Party led by incumbent Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and the TDP-BJP-JSP alliance led by veteran TDP leader and three-time Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. Congress is also in the fray hoping to regain its glory in the residuary State post bifurcation.
The YSRCP will be aiming to repeat their 2019 victory where they won 22 out of the 25 Lok Sabha seats and secured nearly half the votes polled, as Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy is riding high on his welfare schemes.
For Mr. Naidu and JSP chief Pawan Kalyan, it is a do-or-die battle. The election results will decide the very existence of the parties in the political arena. For the BJP, it is a matter of prestige, as it is a part of the alliance.
In the 2019 elections, constituencies concentrated around central Andhra Pradesh had trends of high polling percentages with Narasaraopet being the highest at 85.53%.
Constituencies concentrated around northern Andhra Pradesh witnessed considerably low polling percentages with Visakhapatnam being the lowest at 67.26%
In terms of the absolute numbers of voters, Narasaraopet had the highest turnout with 14,40,732 voters and Araku had the lowest turnout with 10,78,235 voters.
Y.S. Avinash Reddy of the YSRCP party and cousin of Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy secured the highest margin of votes at 380,726 votes when contesting from Kadapa in 2019, a constituency usually dominated by the Reddy family.
Meanwhile, Jayadev Galla of the TDP party and one of the wealthiest politicians in India at the time secured the lowest vote margin contesting from Guntur with 4205 votes. Mr. Galla recently announced a break from full-time politics citing that he needed to focus on his family and business affairs.
Incumbents in fray
With the exception of three candidates, all incumbents contesting this year were elected in the last election as part of the YSRCP, with candidates like Vallabhaneni Balashowry and Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy resigning from the YSRCP to join other parties such as the TDP and JSP.
Big fights
The polls are heating up in four Lok Sabha constituencies of Andhra Pradesh with party heavyweights and high-profile candidates.
The Kadapa constituency will become a battleground for YS family as YSRCP’s Y.S. Avinash Reddy is seeking re-election for a third term and Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) President Y.S. Sharmila is entering electoral politics. Ms. Sharmila is leaving no stone unturned to improve the Congress’ image and has been very vocal in exposing the YSRCP government’s failures and Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s policies. Mr. Avinash Reddy is currently an accused for the murder of former MP Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy.
The Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency is probably the most keenly watched in Andhra Pradesh. The YSRCP has fielded its heavyweight Botcha Jhansi Lakshmi, wife of Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana and the NDA has fielded M. Sribharat from the TDP. It is going to be a battle of Ms. Jhansi and her husband’s political experience with a much younger man who has a strong political legacy.
The Rajahmundry Lok Sabha seat is set for a tussle between YSRCP’s candidate Dr Guduri Srinivas and State BJP chief Daggubati Purandeswari. While it is usually a TDP stronghold, Dr. Srinivas is banking on his status of being a local candidate and intense election campaigning to win. Although Mrs. Purandeswari is a non-local candidate, her lineage as the daughter of TDP founder N T Rama Rao is expected to help.
The election for the Vijayawada Lok Sabha seat will be a battle of brothers as Kesineni Srinivas and his brother Kesineni Shivnath will be fighting on YSRCP and TDP tickets, respectively. The siblings who supported each other in their political endeavours are now pitted against each other.
