Tirupati Lok Sabha Bypoll: TDP to blow poll bugle on January 21

Tirupati: Tirupati Lok Sabha by-election has been generating much heat in all political parties for the past one month. The leaders of various political parties have been involved in chalking out their strategies to show their strength in this by-election.

The principal opposition TDP has been the first party to announce the candidate to contest the bypoll. It has finalised the candidature of former Union minister Panabaka Lakshmi as its candidate much earlier than others and has been finalising the plans to formally kick-start the campaign in the next 3-4 days.

The TDP has decided to launch 'Dharma Parirakshana Yatra' from Tirupati on January 21 for which the party State president K Atchannaidu will be reaching here on January 20 itself. He will inaugurate the party office here and address a public meeting. The party will conduct Dharma Parirakhsana Yatra in all the seven Assembly segments in the Parliamentary constituency purview among which three are in Chittoor district while the rest in Nellore district.

The party leaders and cadre will proceed in 70 vehicles and conduct 700 meetings in villages in these seven Assembly segments, said former MLA M Suguna and TDP Lok Sabha constituency president G Narasimha Yadav. The party has been adopting a three-pronged strategy for this by-election.

First of all, the party has been trying to garner Hindu votes and consolidate its vote bank. Secondly, it aims at countering the government which is implicating the cadres and to boost their morale and finally expose government failures, destructive governance, increasing tax and debt burden on the people while highlighting the development and welfare activities implemented by the TDP government.

Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu held a video-conference with the party's Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency leaders on Saturday and gave directions to them on various issues. Accordingly, the party is going to expose that Tirupati has become the centre of red sanders smuggling which has gone rampant after the YSRCP government assumed power. The other religious propaganda in Tirumala, selling of endowment lands among other things have also come up during the video-conference.

The party coordination committee leaders like Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy, Beeda Ravichandra Yadav and others are trying to motivate the cadres for campaign by inducing a positive attitude in them towards their show of strength in the by-election.

Though the YSRCP was said to have finalised the candidature of physiotherapist Dr Guru Murthy as its candidate, official announcement is still awaited. BJP and Jana Sena have not yet decided on their candidate.