VISAKHAPATNAM: Visakhapatnam North Assembly constituency is set to witness a tough fight with the BJP announcing its candidate for the seat. The BJP, which got Vizag North seat as part of the alliance with the TDP and JSP, has chosen P Vishnu Kumar Raju as its candidate. The YSRC had named KK Raju, who suffered defeat in the last election from the constituency.
Former CBI Joint Director VV Lakshminarayana, who unsuccessfully contested from Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 on JSP ticket, entered the election fray from Visakhapatnam North on behalf of Jai Bharat National Party, which he floated.
Vishnu was elected from Vizag North in 2014 as part of the alliance with the TDP. He then polled 82,079 ballots, registering 51.34% vote share. In 2019, he contested as the BJP nominee and got 18,790 votes, which is the highest polled by BJP contestants in the State. The TDP, JSP and BJP, which contested separately in 2019, secured a total vote share of 59%.
However, the YSRC has consolidated its strength in the constituency as the party won over 90% of divisions in the GVMC election held in 2021. The YSRC had appointed Sanapala Chandramouli as VMRDA chairman recently to win the support of his community in the segment.
The constituency was formed in 2008. Tynala Vijaya Kumar won the seat on the Congress ticket by a margin of 5,523 votes against Shirin Rahman Shaik of Praja Rajyam Party in 2009.
In 2019, the TDP won seat for the first time when Ganta Srinivasa Rao was elected by a slender margin of 1,944 votes. While he got 67,352 votes, his nearest rival Raju of YSRC secured 65,408 votes. Ganta quit as an MLA to register his protest against the privatisation of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. However, his resignation was accepted after two years.
The impact of Lakshminarayana’s presence in the election will only be known only after campaign hots up. He began his campaign with a rally on Thursday. The constituency has a good mixture of elite, middle class and BPL families.
While Raju is banking on the YSRC government flagship welfare programmes Navaratnalu, Vishnu Kumar Raju, who is a bitter critic of the YSRC, is hopeful of sailing through due to the tripartite alliance, and also anti-incumbency factor. However, it is too early to forecast the election result in view of the triangular contest, a political analyst observed.
