Visakhapatnam South Assembly Constituency is unique on several fronts with pollution, drinking water and flooding during rains dominating the issues during campaigning in every election.
The constituency always witnesses multi-corner contest as many think that it being the smallest in the district in terms of area is easy for monitoring and reach out to the voters directly as they prefer door-to-door campaign.
Considered once as core area of the city, the localities under the constituency mainly the One Town area was once the beehive of commercial activity with it being home to the head post office, SBI main branch and several stevedoring companies. Due to pollution, they were later relocated as the city spread to new areas.
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Some of the low-lying areas regularly get flooded during monsoon for want of proper drainage.
Beset with several slums and fishermen localities, drinking water is a big problem. With the elections being held during summer, this will become focus of discussions during the campaigning.
Pollution, mainly by the Visakhapatnam Port Trust, is an important problem here though the magnitude has come down manifold mainly due to execution of many modernisation and capacity augmentation projects. Mechanisation has brought down coal and dust particles getting flown as per the wind direction to various areas in the constituency.
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Road-widening
Still the residents are not happy with the pollution control measures with a thick layer of particles forming over their homes and heritage buildings like several churches, Town Hall, old municipality building and St. Aloysius School.
Just before the elections, GVMC under smart city project launched restoration work on Town Hall and old municipality building facing Beach Road at a cost of ₹10.97 crore.
The modernisation of fishing harbour at a cost of ₹40 crore is hanging fire for a long time. Residents say Allipuram, a crowded business locality, needs widening of the main road. Kotaveedhi, near the conveyor belt, is the worst-hit due to port pollution.
“We want more stringent measures by the port to contain pollution mainly after National Green Tribunal sought time-bound control measures,” Rehman Khan, a resident of the area said.
The constituency as per latest information has a voters’ strength of 2.34 lakh. The constituency was represented by veteran Congressman late Dronamraju Satyanarayana and BJP State president K. Haribabu in alliance with the Telugu Desam Party
Every time it sees at least a dozen candidates clashing sword with each other.In the election caused by the demise of Satyanarayana, his son Srinivasa Rao was given the Congress ticket and won. He could retain the seat with a wafer thin margin of 341 votes by defeating Praja Rajyam Party candidate Kola Guruvulu in 2009 relegating TDP’s Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar to third position.
In the elections held in 2014, Mr. Ganesh Kumar won the seat by beating Mr. Guruvulu, who contested on YSR Congress Party ticket, by a margin of 18,316 votes.