KURNOOL: Kurnool district politics is getting murkier by the day with the ruling party MLAs bent on asserting their power and trying to outwit the rivals within the party.
While the Bhuma Nagi Reddy faction has been gaining ground within the party, his rivals, are distancing themselves from the TD. Gangula Prabhakar Reddy, who recently joined the YSR Congress party is a case in point.
The intra-party dissension has become a big headache for TD in Kurnool district. The ensuing MLC elections would bring to the fore fissures within the party, a party observer noted. The volatile situation and the fast changing equations in the district have made the MLC (local authority constituency) election interesting.
Silpa Chakrapani Reddy, the present MLC, has been retained as the party’s choice to continue as the party candidate. This move has become an important issue in the district politics.
The Telugu Desam party and YSRC consider the MLC election a prestigious issue. The Opposition party plans to field former MLC Gaddam Prakash Reddy in the local authority constituency. As the poll date approaches (March 17), every party is engaged in trying to keep its voters.
In all, 1,084 representatives from the local bodies will cast their votes in the district for the MLC election. Of them, 53 are ZPTC members, 804 MPTCs and 227 municipal councillors.
Of the total electorate, the TD has a strength of 500, YSRC has 475 and Congress has 40. The remaining 69 elected representatives belong to various parties including independents.
Nearly 70 of the YSR Congress party representatives are said to be loyal to TD. Some of the YSRCP and Congress MPTCs and ZPTCs and those belonging to the TD may go for cross voting.
In this situation, the YSRC and TD are trying to keep their flock together. The political parties have set up camps at undisclosed locations and shifted their MPTCs and ZPTCs to those places.
Joint collector C. Hari Kiran said the Election Commission of India has released the MLC elections notification. The last date for receiving nominations would be February 28.
He said poling will take place on March 17 while counting will be on March 20. The voter list would be published within two days giving seven days period for claims and objections.
The final list would be published on 28, he added. Around 804 MPTCs, 53 ZPTCs, Ward Councilors including the members 227 calculating the total figure to 1084 is the number of voters. In addition to this 8 MLAs from the Municipalities in the district and a Parliament of Nandyal are is having voting rights at Atmakur Municipality, the joint collector said.
