GUNTUR: The Guntur Municipal Corporation (GMC) Standing Committee elections, scheduled for February 3, have become a closely contested battle between the YSRCP and the NDA. Both sides are short of one or two votes needed for victory.
While YSRCP filed nine nominations, eight nominations were from the ruling coalition for the standing committee. The deadline for nomination withdrawal ended on Thursday and the GMC officials announced the final list. Three YSRCP and two NDA corporators withdrew their nominations.
In the 2021 elections, YSRCP won 48 out of 58 corporator seats, while TDP secured eight wards or divisions, and Jana Sena won two.
Soon after, one YSRC corporator Krishna Reddy died and the elections were not conducted till now. Later, 12 YSRCP corporators switched allegiance to NDA before, and soon after its victory in the general elections in 2024, reducing the YSRCP strength to 34. The local MLAs, and MPs of the NDA are keenly focused on the standing committee elections to demonstrate their strength and believe that these elections could lead to the removal of the Mayor through a non-confidence motion.
As part of this, in the past three days, as many as two YSRCP corporators: A Padmavathi, and Rehana, who filed the nomination, quit the party and joined the TDP in the presence of Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Communication Dr Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar, local TDP MLAs Galla Madhavi, and Mohammad Abdul Nazeer. This increased the NDA’s strength to 24 corporators.
Speculation is rife that a few other YSRCP members are inclined to join the NDA partners. Alerted by this, a majority of the YSRCP corporators led by Mayor Kavati Manohar Naidu, Lella Appireddy, Guntur East, Prathipadu constituencies’ convenors Noori Fathima, and Kiran Kumar were allegedly shifted to a camp outside the city to prevent them from joining other parties till the elections.
With the current strength of the GMC a total of 29 votes are required for victory in the standing committee elections.
The polling will commence from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm on February 3. The counting will be conducted later in the day, and winners will be announced on the same day.