Will YSRCP’s experiment fetch sympathy votes?

Kakinada: YSRCP has announced the name of Chalamalasetty Sunil Kumar as the candidate for Kakinada Lok Sabha, who was a three-time election loser. He was defeated in a row in 2009, 2014 and 2019, who contested from different parties in all the three elections and stood at second position.

In 2009 elections, Sunil contested as the candidate of erstwhile Praja Rajyam Party, which witnessed three-corner fight. Congress candidate and former Union Minister Mallipudi Mangapati Pallamraju won the election with a majority of 34,044 votes. Sunil stood in second position with 2,89,563 votes while TDP candidate Vasamsetty Satya was in third position with 2,58,046 votes.

In 2014 elections, Chalamalasetty Sunil contested on YSRCP ticket. There was a two-sided contest in this election, in which Sunil got 5,10,971 votes. TDP candidate Thota Narasimham secured 5,14,402 votes and won with a narrow majority of 3,431 votes. Congress candidate MM Pallamraju got 19,754 votes while NOTA got 4,358 votes.

Sunil lost again in 2014 election by less than the votes received by NOTA.

Chalamalasetty Sunil contested from TDP in 2019 elections and was defeated by Vanga Geetha of YSRCP.

Even though he lost three times, since the margin of defeat was small, the YSRCP decided to field him again this time. Names of prominent Kapu leader Mudragada Padmanabham, film director VV Vinayak and others did rounds, who are likely to contest from Kakinada seat, but Padmanabham refused to join YSRCP due to various reasons.

The interesting factor here is that none of the parties on whose ticket Sunil contested and lost in the three elections, came to power. But Sunil is confident that history will change this time. He told The Hans India that he has been meeting various communities as part of the campaign for the past 10 days and all the groups are responding positively.