ANANTAPUR: A peculiar situation was witnessed in Anantapur Lok Sabha segment as the JC Diwakar family had prestige issues after fielding Mr Diwakar Reddy, the son. Mr Diwakar Reddy concentrates on Assembly segments in which Telugu Desam had a stronghold while the YSRC was making all efforts to target JC family in both Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.
The YSRC experimented by fielding Mr T. Rangaiah, former project director of DRDA as Lok Sabha candidate and also from Boya community after the former MP Ananta Venkatrami Reddy had not shown any interest to contest.
Mr Venkatrami Reddy who won four times as MP while his father was a two-time MP from Anantapur Lok Sabha segment had earlier shown interest to contest from Anantapur Assembly this elections.
Mr Venkatrami Reddy’s father Mr Ananta Venkata Reddy won twice in 1989 and 1991 polls. Mr Venkatrami Reddy entered direct politics in 1996 polls and won four times and tasted defeat twice.
In Anantapur Lok Sabha segment, CPI won once while Telugu Desam won thrice. In the last polls, Mr J.C. Diwakar Reddy contested from Telugu Desam and won with majority of 61,269 votes against his nearest rival Ananta Venkatrami Reddy of YSRC.
In the present polls, Mr Diwakar Reddy had mounted pressure on the party high command to change candidates from majority of Assembly segments. But the Mr Chandrababu Naidu changed candidates only from Singanmala and Kalyanadurgam segments and fielded sitting MLAs from Anantapur, Rayadurgam and Guntakal.
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