VIJAYAWADA : It is not an easy victory for candidates other than the Kamma community to win the Mylavaram Assembly constituency, which is a strong bastion for Kamma community for more than six decades starting from Chanumolu Venkata Rao to the recent Vasantha Venkata Krishna Prasad. However, the YSRC chief and Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy took the risk and fielded Sarnala Tirupathi Rao Yadav from Yadava community despite facing a similar scenario when he fielded Jogi Ramesh from Gowda community back in 2014.
After the sitting YSRC MLA Vasantha Venkata Krishna Prasad set aside denying the ticket to contest in the 2024 elections for the second consecutive time, he left the party and joined TDP, and obtained a ticket. Vasantha replaced former MLA and former Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao.
According to statistics obtained from the Election Commission of India, there are a total of 2,78,919 electors in the constituency of which 1,35,457 are male voters, 1,43,443 are female and 13 are third gender voters. The constituency was established in 1955 as per the Delimitation Orders (1955).
The Mylavaram constituency has four mandals—G Konduru, Mylavaram, Reddygudem and Vijayawada rural—which consists of both urban and rural voters.
Closely observing the previous election results, people of Mylavaram never gave a chance to outsiders other than the Kamma community to succeed, irrespective of parties. Be it TDP, or Left parties, or Congress or YSRC, it is always a person from a strong community.
On the other hand, Vasantha Venkata Krishna Prasad’s supporters, who were with him for the past five years, too shifted their loyalty to TDP creating a vacuum for YSRC candidate in some places like Gollapudi, Ibrahimpatnam, Kondapalli, G Kondur and some parts of Mylavaram town.
However, there are chances likely to have a different outcome in the upcoming general elections as the YSRC party senior leaders are closely monitoring the election campaign and results of nominated candidate Sarnala Tirupathi Rao Yadav.
Ironically, YSRC candidate Tirupati Rao Yadav said in several incidents that Jagan Mohan Reddy will be coming for campaigning to support his candidature. He also exuded confidence that record will break this time as people from other communities will emerge as winners for Mylavaram.
“I have blessings from CM Jagan Mohan Reddy and people are with YSRC party. Whoever may be the candidate, YSRC will record a thumping victory in the 2024 elections as the present MLA failed to develop the constituency,” said YSRC MLA candidate Sarnala Tirupathi Rao Yadav.
In addition, the YSRC candidate is confident of support from Vijayawada MP candidate Kesineni Srinivas alias Nani as he is having own cadre in Mylavaram constituency.
The fact is more than 80 per cent of Mylavaram is rural and the remaining 20 per cent is semi-urban. The YSRC party is largely dependent on rural voters as most of them are benefited with the schemes implemented by the YSRC government led by CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. “Poor people benefitted like never before during YSRC regime. If TDP comes into power, it is the poor who are going to suffer,” Tirupathi Rao said.
Meanwhile, TDP candidate Vasantha Venkata Krishna Prasad is leaving no stone unturned to gather all the support from all the communities, especially in rural areas. Those who worked with him during his stint in YSRC are slowly leaving the party and joining Vasantha. More than 100 local leaders of G Kondur, Kondapalli, Gollapudi and Ibrahimpatnam left YSRC and joined campaignings of Vasantha. “Irrespective of party, I developed Mylavaram. People have seen my work and they will support me,” Vasantha said confidently.
What more benefiting Vasantha is support from Devineni Umamaheshwara Rao and TDP leader Bommasani Subba Rao.