The Telugu Desam Party appears to have failed to woo the voters of the Visakhapatnam Agency as the YSRCP is all poised to win Paderu and Araku– the two ST reserved Assembly segments in the district with a comfortable margin.
Kidari Sravan Kumar, son of slain TDP leader Kidari Sarveswara Rao, seems to have failed to garner the voters’ sympathy as he was trailing behind YSRCP candidate Chetti Palguna at end of 21 rounds of counting.
Mr. Palguna had quit his bank job to join active politics while Mr. Sravan Kumar was inducted as the Minister for Tribal Welfare after his father Sarveswara Rao was gunned down by Maoists in October last year.
Mr. Kumar, a wannabe IAS officer who did engineering from IIT-Benares, had to quit the ministry recently for his failure to get elected within a period of six months.
Ms. Palguna had polled 49,815 votes as against 18,168 by Mr. Sravan Kumar till the last report came in. Independent candidates Donnu Dora Siyyari and Pangi Raja Rao secured a good number of votes.
Major issues
“I have a passion to serve the tribal people for which I left a good career. Addressing the issues pertaining to drinking water and healthcare remain my focus areas,” Mr. Palguna told The Hindu .
On the other hand, K. Bhagyalakshmi, daughter of former Congress MLA Chitti Naidu, secured a margin of nearly 50,000 votes in Paderu Assembly segment over sitting MLA Giddi Eswari of TDP at the end of 22 rounds of counting. Both Ms. Eswari and late Sarveswara Rao had defected to the TDP after winning on the YSRCP tickets.
“I have a good experience in taking up public cause before joining the YSRCP. I will devote my full time to serve my constituency under the guidance of my party president Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy,” Ms. Bhagyalakshmi said.
