Dhone has been bastion of Kotla & KE families

Dhone a faction-ridden constituency in the undivided Kurnool district has three mandals, Bethamcherla, Peapuly and Dhone.

1n these mandals, majority of voters belong to the Backward Classes (Boya, Kuruva, Yadava and Golla).

The constituency has total voter strength of 1,94,820. Of these, men are 97,254, women 97,510 and transgender 56.

The Dhone constituency seat was won by Mekala Seshanna of INC in 1972. Later in 1978, KE Krishna Murthy (BC community) from Congress defeated his nearest rival Congress-I candidate Seshanna and got elected to the State Assembly.

In 1983 again, K E Krishna Murthy has won the election by defeating his rival and Independant candidate Segu Venkataramaiah Shetty.

Krishna Murthy later joined the TDP in 1985 and continued his winning spree. After winning for three consecutive times, he returned to the Congress in 1989 and won the seat with a majority of 50,099 votes against C Rama Krishna Reddy of TDP.

In 1994 general election, Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy contested from INC and won the seat with a thumping majority of 67,685 votes against his rival Sudhakar Reddy of CPI.

In 1999 election, KE Prabhakar, brother of KE Krishna Murthy contested the Dhone seat from TDP. He won the seat against his rival R E Ravi Kumar of INC. Prabhakar secured 70,785 votes.

In 2004, Ravi Kumar lost against Kotla Sujathamma who was the Congress candidate.

In 2009, TDP candidate KE Krishna Murthy beat his rival from the Congress party Kotla Sujathamma by 60,000 votes and emerged victorious..

Subsequently in 2014 and 2019, Buggana Rajendranath Reddy had won as YSR Congress party candidate defeating KE Pratap of the TDP.

Four times MLA from Dhone, K E Krishna Murthy, also served as the Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. In 2014 election, he was elected as TDP MLA from Pathikonda and became Deputy Chief Minister.

Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy who represented Dhone, served as the Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh twice in 1983 and 1992-94.

He was elected to Lok Sabha six times and also served as Union Cabinet minister. After his loss in 1999 election, Kotla retired from active politics.