Two political families continue their grip

Visakhapatnam: Gajuwaka Assembly constituency in the district, with around five lakh population, is known as an industrial belt of Visakhapatnam. It is a home to major PSUs like Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, BHEL, Special Economic Zone, Gangavaram Port and hundreds of micro, small and medium industries. Voters in the constituency are mostly working class, but the unions have limited influence when it comes to elections.

After the formation of new constituency Gajuwaka in 2009, PRP candidate Ch Venktaramaiah was elected defeating his nearest independent rival Tipppala Nagireddy with a margin of 17,907 votes.

In 2014 elections, TDP candidate Palla Srinivasa Rao won the seat defeating his nearest rival and YSR Congress Party candidate Tippala Nagireddy with a majority of 21,712 votes.

Palla and Tippala families have a strong grip on the constituency. However, with the group differences between Tippala Nagireddy and his brother and former MLA Tippala Gurumurthy Reddy, the family is losing its hold in the constituency. But both families have compromised and now continuing in the YSRCP. The party has now fielded Tippala Nagireddy again and TDP has also decided to field sitting MLA Palla Srinivasa Rao.

Meanwhile, CPM and CPI have also a good number of voters in the constituency. As both parties joined hands with Jana Sena Party (JSP), there will be a triangular fight in the constituency.

The TDP government has settled the decades-old issue of Inam lands. However, there is a grumble that the government orders benefited only some sections of people. Drinking water problem, pollution and bad of roads are some of the civic issues in the constituency.

More than 1.5 lakh workers who have ESI facility have been facing problems due to the lack an ESI hospital. The four decades old ESI general hospital building has almost collapsed and the land was taken back by Vizag Port Trust. During the past five years, the Central government failed to construct ESI hospital even though it announced a new hospital building with 500 beds.