Gudivada a citadel for TDP for three decades

Vijayawada: Gudivada Assembly constituency in Krishna district had been the citadel for the TDP for three decades since its formation in 1983.

Former Chief Minister N T Rama Rao had contested from Gudivada Assembly constituency and won the elections twice in 1983 and 1985.

NTR had won with a majority of 27,368 votes in 2003 and a bumper majority of 42,003 votes in 2005. The majority had gone up in the second election as his popularity graph took upward swing.

Gudivada constituency has tendency of electing strong political leaders, who maintain good relations with the masses. The constituency has three mandals Gudivada, Gudlavalleru and Nandivada. Gudivada constituency is the bastion for Kamma community leaders.

Kodali Venkateswara Rao, Ravi Haragopal, Ravi Venkateswara Rao, Ravi Sobhanadri Chowdary, Yerneni Subramanyam and others are among the prominent leaders who were elected from Gudiavada constituency. TDP candidates were N T Rama Rao, Ravi Sobhanadri Chowdary, Ravi Haragopal, Ravi Venkateswara Rao and Kodali Venkateswara Rao from 1983 to 2009.

YSRCP leader Kodali Venkateswara Rao alias Nani was elected four times from Gudivada. He was elected twice on behalf of TDP in 2004 and 2009. Later, he joined the YSRCP after Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy launched the party in 2011 and was elected twice on behalf of the party.

In 2014, Kodali defeated Ravi Venkateswara Rao of TDP by margin of 11,537 votes. In 2019, Kodali Venkateswara Rao had defeated TDP candidate Devineni Avinash by a margin of 19,479 votes. He became the Minister for Civil Supplies in the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy cabinet.

Kodali Nani got 89,833 votes and Devineni Avinash secured 70,354 votes. Avinash is the son of Devineni Rajasekhar alias Nehru, who was the staunch supporter of N T Rama Rao for a long time.

Earlier when he was in TDP, Kodali Nani had defeated Congress candidate K Eswar Kumar in 2004 and registered victory over the Congress candidate Pinnamaneni Venkateswara Rao in 2009. Nani secured a majority of 8,864 votes in 2004 and 17,630 votes in 2009. Kodali Nani turned into a strong critic of the TDP since he joined the YSRCP.

Gudivada voters have the tendency of electing a candidate more than one time if they like him. Katari Satyanarayana Rao a Congress leader was elected twice in 1972 and 1978.