The YSR Congress party under the leadership of CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy sprung a surprise when candidates for all 175 assembly and 24 parliament seats were announced at a time without much wavering like other parties. More surprising is that the party didn’t announce the candidature for only one seat, that is Anakapalli MP segment.
Is there any underlying strategy of YSRCP for not finalizing the candidate for this one seat? This has been the point of discussion among the political circles.
In 2019 elections, the YSRCP clinched the Anakapalli parliament seat with a decisive victory as Bhisetti Venkata Satyavathi romped home with a huge mandate. However, YS Jagan is not willing to retain her this time due to poor feedback from the internal survey reports done by the party. Moreover, she said to has not evinced interest to contest this time. Reportedly, the party’s high command wants to field a candidate with a strong financial background to counter the NDA alliance and the huge anti-incumbency wave.
Though it was initially speculated that Pawan Kalyan’s brother Naga Babu would be fielded by the alliance, sources revealed that the TDP and Janasena agreed to allot the Anakapalli MP to the Bharatiya Janata party as part of the tripartite deal between the three parties. BJP Leaders like CM Ramesh and GVL Narasimha Rao are the forerunners to contest on behalf of the alliance from this segment. As per pre-poll surveys, the alliance is likely to emerge victorious from the seat of Anakapalli.
So, Jagan Mohan Reddy wants to pitch in a strong candidate from his party who can pose a big challenge for the alliance here. Deputy CM Budi Mutyalanaidu was initially considered for this seat. However, his name was announced for Madugula MLA seat because he expressed his unwillingness to contest as MP. The name of Peela Rama Kumari, director of the famous milk industry, Vishaka Dairy, also came up for discussion. But the uncertainty over her candidature continues even till today. Jagan is still in huge confusion about selecting a suitable candidate for this particular seat.
The YSRCP, which has no problem in finalizing the candidates for all assembly and MP seats much earlier than the NDA alliance, is involved in a lot of brainstorming sessions only to announce the contestant for the Anakapalli seat.
