GUNTUR: The candidates of all major political parties and their cadre are slogging it out in the Guntur East Assembly constituency as they are wooing voters with promises of all-round development of Guntur city if they are elected.
The main battle is between the TDP and the YSRC. While Mohammed Mustafa, the sitting YSRC MLA, is looking to defend his turf and win the seat for the second consecutive time, his TDP opponent Naseer Ahamed is contesting for the first time and wants to upset YSRC’s apple cart.
Others in the fray are Sk Jiaur Rahman of Jana Sena, Neralla Suresh of BJP and Jaganmohan Reddy of Congress. Muslims, Kapus, SCs, Arya Vysyas and BCs form the bulk of voters and are deciding factors in the Assembly constituency. Muslims with 40,100 votes dominate the segment. They are followed by 28,400 Arya Vysyas, 26,200 Kapus, 19,500 Madigas, 18,300 Malas, 9,400 Reddys and 33,000 BCs.
The YSRC is hoping to retain the seat with the support of SC, ST and BC voters. As the Guntur East Assembly constituency is a bastion of the Muslims, Md Mustafa won against TDP candidate Maddali Giridhar in 2014. But the TDP has shifted Giridhar to the Guntur West this time.
The locals, however, have several issues concerning development. R Sri Krishna, Sk Karimullah and others lamented that the main roads of Ponnuru road area, Nandivelugu road area were dismantled and repair works were taken up, but those were yet to be completed due to negligence of Guntur Municipal Corporation, they said.
They said that as the underground drainage works were not completed the public were suffering a lot in Old Guntur. They alleged that the government was afraid to conduct civic body elections for the past 10 years and so they were not in a position to approach the GMC members to get their issues resolved and the officials too were not responding properly to the complaints of common people.
Speaking to TNIE, TDP candidate Naseer Ahamed promised to allot house sites within two years and houses to all eligible poor in slum areas under various housing schemes. He said that as there were over 100 slums in Guntur East Assembly constituency so he would resolve the housing issue with the help of the GMC officials.
The TDP candidate alleged that though a number of people died due to contamination of drinking water in the city, but the YSRC MLA never addressed the problem.He observed that the problems of the people related to GMC persisted as the officials were negligent to solve the them in the absence of an elected body and so he would like to improve rapport with officials and clear the public problems within scheduled time. He said that he was always with the people and would serve them if he won the election. Speaking to TNIE, sitting YSRC MLA Md Mustafa said that he too was always with the people of Guntur East and promised to clear the drinking water problem.
He alleged that the TDP government changed the commissioners frequently so the civic problems could not be solved by the municipal corporation.He lamented that though the government sanctioned `400 crore for Guntur for construction of overhead tanks to resolve drinking water problem, but the GMC failed to complete the project in the past five years.
He further alleged that government welfare schemes only benefited the TDP supporters and there was anti-TDP wave and that would help YSRC to win the seat with record margin of votes in the Assembly election.
He promised to solve all problems of the public if they gave him their mandate for the second consecutive time. He further said that he would like to develop the city as a model one in the State in the coming years.