Hyderabad, March 24: The results of MLC elections from nine local authority constituencies in eight districts have thrown up three important facts: TDP benefits from the split in Congress; Congress is badly bruised and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is not as powerful as he is made out to be.
The TDP, Congress and Jagan camp won three each of the nine seats for which polling was held on March 21. The Congress won Srikakulam, Nellore and Kurnool, the TDP West Godavari, East Godavari and Anantapur and Jagan pocketed Kadapa, Chittoor and West Godvari.
The TDP’s tally in the council went up by two because among those who retired was only one TDP MLC. The Congress strength has come down to three from five while Jagan opened his account with three.
After the results were out, TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu was beaming. “The two additional seats are bonus given to us by the Congress,” he said, admitting that infighting in the Congress had helped his party win in East Godavari and Anantapur districts. Though it was known that one of the two seats in West Godavari would go to the TDP (Angara Ramamohan), that of East Godavari and Anantapur were clearly because of the raging group rivalry in the Congress.
In East Godavari, Jagan candidate K Chittabbai and Congress nominee G Rudraraju lost to TDP’s Boddu Bhasakara Rama Rao. The TDP did not sweat it out for victory – all it did was to ensure that its 607 votes went to the official candidate en bloc. Rudraraju polled 438 and Chittabbai, 278 votes.
In Ananatapur, the victory of TDP candidate Mettu Govinda Reddy was on account of about 35 to 40 voters of Congress leader and former minister J C Diwakar Reddy abstaining from voting. Congress nominee Patil Venugopal Reddy, who has a running feud with Diwakar Reddy, paid the price by polling only 388 as against Govinda Reddy’s 441 votes.
When it comes to the Congress, the elections delivered a rude shock. Jagan surely dented the otherwise bright prospects of Congress nominees. Though the Congress had taken the elections as a prestige issue, it could not take the battle into the enemy’s camp.
In Kadapa, the Congress deployed a Union Minister of State (Sai Pratap), three state ministers (YS Vivekananda Reddy, Ahmadulla and DL Ravindra Reddy) and 20-point economic programme chairman V Tulasi Reddy apart from utilising the services of another minister Kanna Lakshminarayana who is incharge of the district. Yet, it could not win the seat.
Its candidate N Varadarajul Reddy lost to Jagan candidate C Naryana Reddy by a margin of 10 votes.
In Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy’s Chittoor district, Congress nominee B Naresh Kumar Reddy lost to Jagan’s man Dr Desai Tippa Reddy by a margin of 49 votes. Had the chief minister no rivalry with former minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, he may have won the seat but more a Kiran hater than Jagan lover that Ramachadra Reddy is, he moved heaven and earth and secured the victory of Tippa Reddy. Kiran Kumar Reddy managed to win back MLAs G Kuthuhalamma, M Ravi and Shajahan yet it did not help him in winning the seat. The Congress had to be content with victories in Srikakulam, Nellore and Kurnool.
Jagan who won three seats – Kadapa, West Godavari and Chittoor – managed to rock the Congress boat in East Godavari and help the TDP win the seat.
—-expressnews