Salur Polls Throw Up Rare Husband-Wife Contest
The disagreement figured prominently in local political discussions and on social media.
Visakhapatnam:The ruling alliance’s decision to allot the Salur municipal chairperson post in Parvathipuram Manyam district to the Jana Sena has sparked discontent among local Telugu Desam leaders and workers.
Adding to the political tension, former TD councillor Y. Harshavardhan’s wife, Gulla Manjeera, has entered the contest as an independent, while Harshavardhan is contesting Ward 21 on a TD ticket.
The chairperson’s post is reserved for a BC woman. Local TD leaders had expected the party to retain the post under the alliance’s seat-sharing arrangement, citing its strong performance in the 2024 Assembly elections and its support base in Salur.
Manjeera filed her nomination for the chairperson’s post despite the alliance’s decision to allocate it to Jana Sena. Party leaders tried to persuade her to withdraw, but she refused, bringing the couple’s separate candidacies into the spotlight.
Earlier, minister Gummidi Sandhya Rani also raised her concern over the allocation at a meeting in Salur. She urged district in-charge minister K. Atchannaidu to take the issue up with the party leadership. She said local leaders and workers felt the BC community had been treated unfairly despite its contributions to strengthening the party in the constituency.
TD leaders and workers have maintained that the party’s local strength warranted allocation of the chairperson’s post to it.
The disagreement figured prominently in local political discussions and on social media.
Salur municipality has 32 wards and serves a population of around 50,000. As campaigning gathers momentum, the dispute over the chairperson’s post and Manjeera’s independent candidature have become focal points of the election campaign.
