Royal family enjoying patronage of people for last 7 decades

Vizianagaram : The Vizianagaram Assembly constituency has been one of the prominent constituencies in Andhra Pradesh as the constituency is being represented by the royal family members of Vizianagaram Samsthanam for the past seven decades.

Vizianagaram, which is located near Visakhapatnam and adjacent to Bhogapuram airport has its own prominence in the AP politics for the past few decades.

The voters of the Vizianagaram Assembly constituency have shown their loyalty towards the royal family of this Samsthanam and sent the members of the family to the Assembly. After formation of the constituency, then prince of Vizianagaram Pusapati Vijayarama Gajapathi Raju, popularly known as Raja Saheb or PVG Garu by the people here won as MLA in 1952 and 1955 from socialist party.

Later in 1978, P Ashok Gajapathi Raju, the younger son of PVG Raju, won from Janata Party and later he joined the TDP after the foundation of the party.

Ashok won on behalf of TDP in 1983 and he continuously represented the constituency till 1999. Being a senior leader in the party, he had served as Minister during the TDP regime holding different portfolios like Revenue, Assembly Affairs and Commercial Taxes. Ashok has the distinction of serving as Cabinet Minister under both N T Rama Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu.

Now K Veerabhadra Swamy of YSRCP is representing the constituency. He defeated TDP’s P Aditi Gajapathi Raju, the daughter of Ashok, in 2019 State Assembly elections.

Anyhow most of the time, the constituency was in the hands of Vizianagaram royal family and the people believe that the Maharaja does good for the society.

In 2019 elections, out of 2 lakh voters, about 1.51 lakh voters cast their votes. YSRCP’s K Veerabhadra Swamy polled 78,849 votes while Aditi Gajapathi Raju got 72,432 votes.

According to sources, in 2024 Assembly polls, senior TDP leader Ashok Gajapathi Raju is expected to contest from the constituency while K Veerabhadra Swamy is likely to be fielded again by the YSRCP.

Kapus, Yadavas and other backward communities play a major role in deciding the fortune of the contesting candidates.