Kodumur Constituency: Minister’s brother pips dozen contenders

Kodumur: Kodumur constituency is one among the seven constituencies in Kurnool district which is reserved for SC community. Though it is reserved for SCs, the political decisions are made by the leaders from Reddy community.

The constituency has four mandals, Gudur, Belagal, Kodumur and Kodumur Rural. There were at least 12 people in the race for the party ticket from the YSRCP but finally it decided to replace the sitting MLA Dr Jaradoddi Sudhakar and gave ticket to Audimulapu Sateesh, the brother of minister Audimulapu Suresh.

Those in the race were P Murali Krishna, ex-MLA who had contested from Congress in 2009 and a former TTD member, former MLA who won in 2014 M Mani Gandhi, Sandhya Vikram, YSRC state youth leader, Shyam Rao, Puttaparthi Circle Inspector and Masapogu Geetha Sree, daughter of former MLA Madan Gopal. Though Murali Krishna and Gandhi have good hold over the constituency, the party high command finally gave the ticket to Sateesh.

From TDP, Akepogu Prabhakar who is at present the constituency in-charge may be declared as the party candidate. He was in the field since 2004. He lost the election with a margin of 17,113 votes against M Sikhamani.

After his defeat in 2004, he did not contest at the elections but has been working for the party and actively participating in the activities.

A new face Kiranmai who is being supported by T G Bharat, the incumbent MLA is striving hard to for the ticket. She also has the support of Kodumur in-charge Vishnu Vardhan Reddy. These two strong leaders are known to have proposed the candidature of Kiranmai. Kodumur constituency has a total voters strength of 2,31,940. Of them, 1,16,770 are males, 1,16,157 are females and 13 third gender.