Hyderabad/Pulivendula: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is leading on his home turf — the Pulivendula assembly constituency — with a margin of 54,797 votes against the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate Mareddy Ravindranath Reddy, also known as B.Tech Ravi, after 18th of 22 rounds counting.
However, in a major defeat his party’s tally fell from 151 last time to a lead in only 13 seats at this point.
Jagan is a two-time MLA (2014 and 2019) from the high-profile seat, which was held previously by his father and former CM of united Andhra Pradesh, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, until his demise in a chopper crash in 2009.
The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) had swept the 2019 polls and won 151 out of 175 assembly seats. Jagan had retained Pulivendula, widening his victory margin to 90,110 votes from 75,243 in 2014.
The Pulivendula assembly seat lies within the YS family bastion of Kadapa, which was renamed as YSR Kadapa district after the late iconic leader. It is also part of the Kadapa Lok Sabha constituency, which had elected Jagan to the Parliament in 2009 as a Congress candidate, and in 2011 as a YSRCP candidate. Jagan had won the 2011 bypoll with a margin of over 5.4 lakh votes.
Pulivendula has an agriculture-based economy and lies about 75 kilometres from Kadapa in the arid Rayalaseema region. Being the CM’s constituency, it now boasts of a new bus station, a new medical college and hospital, revamped roads, and so on.
The key talking point in Pulivendula this election season was Jagan’s uncle Vivekananda Reddy’s murder case from 2019. Also, his sister Y.S. Sharmila Reddy had challenged him by contesting as Congress candidate for the Kadapa Lok Sabha seat.
Sharmila, the state Congress unit chief, had even accused the YSRCP of having used Viveka’s murder for political gains in 2019.
Viveka, who had also represented Pulivendula in the past and was a former MP from Kadapa, was found brutally slayed, allegedly with an axe, at his residence in Pulivendula on 15 March 2019.
The gruesome murder had sent shockwaves across the state, weeks ahead of the 2019 elections. The case remains unresolved till date.
Both Sharmila and Viveka’s daughter Suneetha Narreddy campaigned vigorously in the segment, accusing Jagan of shielding the accused — their cousin and Kadapa’s sitting MP and candidate Y.S. Avinash Reddy.
Sharmila also questioned why Jagan had become averse to the CBI probe, which he himself had demanded as an opposition leader, when the murder had taken place.
Jagan addressed the accusations and defended Avinash, saying that his sisters had become his rival, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu’s pawns and puppets.
Pulivendula, with a total of 2,29,687 registered voters, recorded a voting percentage of 81.34 percent on 13 May, according to the Election Commission.
Also Read: Some matters settled, but many squabbles persist — AP-Telangana ties 10 yrs after bifurcation