Gudur to witness tight fight between TDP, YSRCP

Nellore: Gudur assembly constituency is going to witness an interesting situation this time as the YSRCP sitting MLA shifted loyalties to ruling TDP and Tirupati MP from the opposition is contesting for the assembly segment here. Locally strong leader BalliDurgaprasad Rao joined the opposition and contesting for Tirupati LS seat.

Gudur is reserved constituency and it has been experiencing mixed results since 1955, Congress and Cong-I won 5 times, TDP 4 times, YSRCP once, and independents 3 times till 2014. BalliDurgaprasad Rao won the 1994, 1999 and 2009 polls as TDP candidate. Patra Prakasa Rao won 2004 polls from Congress.

TDP denied ticket to Balli Durgaprasad Rao in 2014 and selected Dr BR JyothsnaLatha as the candidate who suffered defeat. YSRCP candidate P Sunil Kumar won over Jyothsna with a majority of around 9,000 votes. Subsequently, Sunil Kumar shifted his loyalties from the opposition to the ruling TDP.

At the same time, Balli Durgaprasad Rao who was denied ticket by TDP, joined the opposition and is now candidate for Tirupati reserved LS constituency where former Union Minister Panabaka Lakshmi is contesting on behalf of TDP. Dr V Varaprasad Rao has beenfielded to contest from Gudur assembly constituency on YSRCP ticket.

In fact,Sarvepalli, Gudur, Venkatagiri and Sullurpet constituencies come under Tirupati LS constituency where 3 segments were having legislators from the opposition. The political situation in Gudurconstituency changed with shifting of loyalties of Sunil. Only Venkatagiri is safe seat for the ruling party. After Congress party lost its hold in the district, there has been stiff competition between TDP and YSRCP in the constituency.

Sunil won as YSR Congress candidate in the previous polls and is now candidate for the ruling party. Political analysts say there would be an edge to the opposition candidate since Durgaprasad Rao is having local contacts who won from here four timesand is contesting as LS candidate and this would benefit Varaprasad this time.

Besides, Varaprasad also served as local MP for five years which is another supporting aspect for the opposition.TDP candidate gained around 72,000 votes during last elections and the legislator is expecting he would have an edge in the current elections due to welfare schemes of the State government.