TDP hopes to recapture its former fortress

Penukonda(Sri Sathya Sai district): The Assembly constituency of Penukonda had been a TDP fortress for over two decades. Paritala Ravindra, an ex-Maoist, became MLA first in 1994 Assembly elections. He was a three-time MLA from the historical town.

After Ravindra, his followers B K Parthasarathi became MLA twice in 2009 and 2014. He unsuccessfully contested in 2019. For the first time since 1994, TDP tasted defeat from the constituency in 2019.

Presently, S Savitha, supported by senior TDP leader B K Parthasarathi, is very confident of victory. Besides, her rival in the YSRCP K V Ushasri Charan, is a sitting MLA of Kalyandurg and new to Penukonda.

She is being projected by Savitha as one rejected by party workers in Kalyandurg as well as by party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, who did not deem her fit for renomination. TDP leaders here had made her contesting from Penukonda as ‘immoral’ and turned it a campaign issue. They maintained that if she was useless in Kalyandurg, how can she be useful in Penukonda to people.

While Ushasri Charan campaigned for her own victory citing the welfare schemes of the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, she maintained that the constituency voters were beneficiaries of welfare schemes, as such the people are inclined to vote only for YSRCP irrespective of who the party candidate is.

The two women vociferously fought each other. Ushasri pointed out that Savitha had no record of any service to people while she served people in her capacity as minister and MLA.

Savitha is banking on the strength of her party which continually won from the constituency.

The constituency has five mandals, including Parigi, Penukonda, Gorantla, Somandepalle and Roddam.