TDP suffers worst ever defeat in Chandrababu Naidu's native district

Tirupati: The ruling TDP has suffered its worst ever defeat in Chittoor district in the 2019 elections with the party able to win only one seat against 14 in the district and also lost both the MP seats Tirupati and Chittoor.

It is needless to say that the leaders and the cadre are deeply shocked and were unable to digest the most humiliating defeat the party had suffered in the home turf of party supremo and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu who too this time trailed in the initial rounds for the first time, causing concern for party cadre. Interestingly there is no hint from anywhere be it surveys, media reports and even YSRCP expectations that the TDP will be decimated in Chandrababu Naidu's own district.

Even the big wigs like Industries Minister N Amaranatha Reddy who contested from Palamaner have bitten the dust. Reddy who won in the 2014 as YSRCP candidate from the same constituency later switched loyalty to the TDP to become Minister but this time he faced defeat at the hands of a political green horn Venkatesh Gowd.

With his defeat, the YSRCP took a sweet revenge on him for ditching the party after winning the election to get position. What is interesting is that despite Chandrababu Naidu putting in his best efforts in selection of candidates, completion of the long waited Handri- Neeva Project and bringing water to the western part just a few months before the polling and the high pitch campaign, the party was almost wiped out in the district.

TDP to be on the safe side preferred to field the kin of TDP senior leaders in many seats but in vain. It fielded Bojjala Sudhir Reddy, son of ailing former Minister Bojjala Gopalakirshna Reddy in Srikalahasti, Gali Bhanu Praksh in Nagari and Hari Krishna, son of Gummadi Kuthuhalamma, senior TDP leader in GD Nellore but all them were defeated.

It also romped in N Kishore Kumar Reddy, brother of N Kiran Kumar Reddy, the last Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh to contest in Piler who too suffered defeat. The TDP even welcomed its archrival C K Babu into the party to brighten party chances in three constituencies in Chittoor, Puthalapattu and Palamaner but it also failed to stop the party downfall.

Venkatesh, a loyal TDP activist from Chandragiri, the native place of TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu, pointed out that even when the Congress won in 1989, 2004 and 2009 to form the government, the TDP got 5-6 seats in the district but this time it is horrible performance of the party securing only one seat and the victory margin of Naidu in Kuppam coming down drastically to 30,000 against his earlier margin of 46,000 to 56,000 votes.

A YSRCP sympathiser Ramachandra Reddy said that what YS Rajasekhara Reddy could not achieve, Jaganmohan Reddy achieved by registering an unthinkable victory in the State and dealt a death blow on TDP in its own bastion Chittoor district.