The political landscape heats up in Andhra Pradesh with the ruling YSRCP, led by chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy found to face stiff competition from the newly formed alliance between the main opposition party Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Jana Sena Party led by Pawan Kalyan and Bharatiya Janata Party (TDP).
The first major political survey announced after this alliance formed, predicted a massive victory for TDP and its allies in the forthcoming polls. In anticipation of the forthcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh, ABP News teamed up with CVoter to conduct a comprehensive opinion poll aiming to provide insights into the prevailing public sentiment in the state.
Based on the findings of the ABP-CVoter Opinion poll, it’s projected that the NDA will secure a substantial 45% share of the vote, closely followed by the YSR Congress, which is anticipated to garner 42% of the vote share. The poll also suggests that the I.N.D.I.A bloc might get 3% of the vote share.
In terms of seat allocation, the NDA is likely to emerge victorious in 20 constituencies while YSR Congress is expected to win in 5 seats.
Moreover, the Network 18 survey also predicts a landslide victory for the TDP alliance. It is said that this alliance will get 50 percent votes together. It is estimated that YCP will get 41 percent votes, Congress alliance will get 6 percent votes and others will get 3 percent votes.
According to this, TDP alliance will get 18 MP seats and YCP will get seven. It said that the rest of the parties including the Congress will not get a single seat. It is remarkable that the public opinion is almost the same in these two surveys.
There were several significant developments ahead of Lok Sabha polls including YS Sharmila, sister of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, announcing the merger of YSR Telangana Party with Congress in New Delhi.
Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, also recently walked out of Rajamahendravaram Central Jail on health grounds after 53 days of arrest in connection with the multi-crore skill development corporation scam case.
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections witnessed a landslide victory for YSRCP securing 22 out of 25 seats leaving TDP with a meager three seats. Notably, both BJP and Congress failed to make any significant impact in the state highlighting the electorate’s preference for regional parties and their vote share was confined to NOTA.
Major exam scam unearthed in APPSC Group-1 selections
As many as 143 Group-1 officers in Andhra Pradesh state government, who were recruited by the AP State Public Service Commission (APPSC) in recent times. This was as a result of the AP High Court directive two days ago finding 2018 Group-1 Exam paper evaluation was illegal and ordered to cancel the examination.
The High Court verdict has exposed a major scam in APPSC recruitment during YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s regime. On March 13, the State High Court gave a crucial verdict on the Group-1 Mains examination conducted by APPSC in AP in 2018.
Many candidates have filed a petition in the High Court alleging massive irregularities in the manual evaluation of the 2018 Group-1 Mains answer sheets and seeking annulment of the process. It is alleged that the answer sheets were evaluated twice in a manual (correction by hand) mode.
The court directed to canceal this examination and conduct a fresh one. It also ordered that the candidates should be given at least two months before the examination and the selection process should be completed within six months.
The court reminded that those who have already been selected and working for these posts have given an affidavit stating that they will abide by the orders of the court. To this extent, High Court judge Justice Nimmagadda Venkateshwarlu gave a key verdict on Wednesday.
A notification was issued on December 31, 2018 for filling up 162 Group 1 posts. Mains are conducted for all those who qualified in prelims. The answer sheets of these were digitally evaluated and 326 candidates were found eligible by APPSC.
Then the first manual evaluation disqualified 202 of them, about 62 percent. Candidates questioned how so many would be disqualified no matter how they were evaluated when the answer sheet was the same. The petitioners have proved with evidence that they were manually evaluated for the second time as well.
It is alleged that the APPSC results were declared by sidetracking the results of the first correction and selecting those who liked it after the second correction. The High Court held that the multiple evaluation of the Mains answer sheets was illegal.
It has been clarified that the list of selected candidates will be canceled and re-examination will be conducted within 6 months. In this context, the AP government assured those who are losing jobs that it will appeal the verdict in the Supreme Court.
