ANANTAPUR: The rising political heat is palpable in the district as the ruling YSRC and opposition TDP have intensified their activities in their quest to win all the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in the ensuing elections.
While Yuva Galam Padayatra of TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh has rejuvenated the party cadre after the poll debacle in 2019, the ruling YSRC, which is riding high on the welfare schemes and other development programmes, has taken up a massive public outreach programme to win the people’s trust.
While the YSRC is keen to repeat its good show in 2024, the TDP is determined to regain its lost glory by winning majority seats in the next elections.
The two political parties have laid emphasis on strengthening their base at the grassroots and at the same time evolving strategies to emerge victorious in the elections. The YSRC and the TDP are making all-out efforts to win the support of Backward Classes, particularly of Boya and Kuraba communities, besides focusing on social justice to win polls.
Kadiri, Puttaparthi, Penukonda, Dharmavaram, Anantapur, Raptadu, Kalyanadurgam, Rayadurgam, Guntakal and Singanamala constituencies in the erstwhile Anantapur district have turned out to be a severe headache for the TDP due to infighting among leaders, a political analyst observed.
Despite Lokesh’s yatra, uncertainty looms large among the TDP leaders as to how to up the ante against the ruling YSRC and take the government’s failures on various fronts to the people. On the other hand, the ruling YSRC seems to be sailing through troubled water as the party cadre and other key leaders at the ground level are unhappy with their local MLAs as they are inaccessible.
PV Sidda Reddy (Kadiri), M Sankara Narayana (Penukonda), KV Ushasri Charan (Kalyanadurgam), Kethireddy Peddareddy (Tadipatri), Jonnalagadda Padmavati (Singanamala) and Tippe Swamy (Madakasira) are among the ruling YSRC MLAs facing dissidence in their constituencies. Hence, the YSRC leadership needs to focus on stemming the dissidence to repeat the good show in the 2024 elections, a political observer opined.