TIRUPATI: The Telugu Desam Party's nightmare continues as the YSR Congress bagged the Kuppam Municipality that falls under the Kuppam assembly segment, which was a bastion of former chief minister and TDP chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu for decades.
The high-stakes ballot battle between the ‘yellow outfits’ and the ‘men in Blue-White-Green’ came to an end with the election results out on Wednesday. YSRC candidates won in 19 out of 25 wards, including the 14th ward, which saw unanimous election, while TDP candidates won 6 wards.
This was the maiden election after the Kuppam town was upgraded from being a Nagar Panchayat to a Grade III municipality. Both the ruling and opposition parties left no stone unturned to grab power in the civic body. Amid trading charges of election malpractices by both YSRC and TDP, polls took place in 24 out of the 25 wards, while the 14th ward landed into YSRC’s kitty through unanimous election.
Kuppam municipal commissioner and returning officer VS Chitti Babu said the counting of votes was done in a fair and peaceful manner on Wednesday under the supervision of senior official Prabhakar Reddy at the MFC Government Junior Vocational College.
As per the results, TD’s municipal chairman candidate DS Thrilok, who contested from the 24th ward, lost to YSRC’s candidate Syed Alli with a small margin of 50 votes. YSRC’s chairman nominee Darba Sudheer, won the 16th ward by trouncing TD’s Harshadharma Teja with a majority of 234 votes.
In the 2019 assembly elections, Naidu had won the Kuppam seat by a margin of 30,722 votes, as against his margin of 47,121 in the 2014 elections. The percentage of Naidu’s winning margin in the divisions under the Kuppam municipality was coming down in the past few elections.
According to the reports, out of the 21,141 votes polled in the divisions under Kuppam municipality in the 2009 general elections, the TD had secured 14,039 votes (69%) against its rival Congress, which secured 5,617 votes (22%), and won by a majority of 8,422 votes. In 2014 general elections, out of 24,246 polled votes, TDP got 16,274 votes (66%) and registered a majority of 9,050 votes against the YSRC. The YSRC contested the polls for the first time here and secured 7,224 votes (30%).
In 2019, out of the 27,262 polled votes, the TD managed to secure 17,146 votes (59%) while the YSRC got 8,065 votes (34%) and the Congress 1,043 votes (3%). The TDP has bagged a majority of 9,081 votes in this election.
Now, in the Kuppam municipal polls, the YSRC managed to register a majority of 4,038 votes in 18 wards it won (excluding 14th ward), while the TD secured a majority of 748 votes in the six wards it won.
The YSRC opened its account by winning the 1st ward with a majority of 654 votes against its rival TD. This was followed by the results in the 2nd ward, which the YSRC won with a majority of 352 votes. It won the 3rd ward with a majority of 98 votes, the 4th ward with 215 votes, the 6th ward with 12 votes, the 7th ward with 300 votes; the 8th ward with 314 votes, the 9th ward with 77 votes, the 10th ward with 276 votes, the 12th ward with 188 votes, the 13th ward with 115 votes, the 14th ward unanimously, the 15th ward with 465 votes, the 16th ward with 234 votes, the 17th ward with 87 votes, the 21st ward with 7 votes, the 23rd ward with 69 votes, the 24th ward with 50 votes and the 25th ward with 525 votes.
The opposition Telugu Desam secured six wards: It won the 5th ward with a majority of 156 votes, the 11th ward with 6 votes, the 18th ward with 104 votes, the 19th ward with 95 votes the 20th ward with 151 votes and the 22nd ward with 232 votes.
