Anantapur: One family ruled the roost in Anantapur for decades

Anantapur : The Anantapur Assembly, one of the seven segments of Anantapur Parliamentary constituency has 2,55,682 voters. It was a Congress bastion for several decades until the YSRCP came into the scene. For more than two decades, a single family loyal to Congress had a sway on the constituency. B Narayana Reddy and his brother Gurunath Reddy were staunch Congress loyalists and more particularly to Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.

Narayana Reddy was MLA in 1999 and 2004. In 2009, Gurunath Reddy became the Congress MLA. In 2012 Gurunath Reddy resigned as Congress MLA and sailed with Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy to once again contest as YSRCP candidate and in the byelection, he returned as MLA in 2012.

In 2014, TDP candidate V Prabhakar Chowdary won in the election. In 2019, Anantha Venkatarama Reddy, an ex-Congress MP contested as YSRCP MLA defeating his nearest TDP rival Prabhakar Chowdary.

Except in 2014 when TDP won, the Congress had been winning the seat since 1999 while YSRCP won the seat twice in 2012 and 2019.

While the TDP candidate V Prabhakar Chowdary is planning to contest again in 2024, YSRCP sitting MLA Anantha Venkatarama Reddy is unlikely to contest again as he secured the MLA ticket in 2019 with an assurance of not contesting again in 2014, according to reliable party sources.

There is also talk of ex-MLA Gurunath Reddy contesting on the ruling party ticket again. There are also other aspirants vying for YSRCP ticket. In TDP camp too, the candidature of Prabhakar Chowdary is not a certainty.

There are rumours that Anantapur seat will be allotted either to CPI or Jana Sena Party as part TDP’s alliance. Unless seat adjustment talks are finalised between TDP, Jana Sena and CPI, there is no clarity on a few seats, including Anantapur.

All said and done, the TDP is far ahead of other parties in mass contact programmes for the last few months. They have also been organising bus yatras in Assembly constituencies. There is intense political activity in Anantapur and Sathya Sai districts for quite some time in TDP and YSRCP camps.