Anantapur: TDP to give tough fight to YSRCP in AMC polls

Anantapur: Minister for Urban Development and district in-charge Botsa Sathyanarayana and Minister for Roads and Buildings M Sankara Narayana are engaged in holding consultations with local leaders and MLAs on the finalisation of party candidates for the municipal polls and the lone Municipal Corporation of Anantapur as well as persuading large number of party aspirants for councillors and corporators for the nine municipalities and one corporation in the district.

Anantapur corporation has 50 municipal divisions and YSRCP aspirants had filed 192 nominations for 50 divisions. For the remaining municipalities of Gooty, Pamidi, Dharmavaram, Hindupuram, Kadiri, Kalyandurgam, Rayadurgam, Guntakal and Tadipatri, more than one to a maximum of 14 aspiring candidates had filed nominations per municipal ward from YSRCP alone.

There is heavy demand from aspirants in YSRCP and the leaders are having a hard time in persuading others from withdraw from the fray. District in-charge minister Botcha Satyanarayana is holding parleys with local MLAs and leaders and advised the aspirants to withdraw from the contest once the party declared the list of official candidates.

Several influential aspirants are not inclined to withdraw from the fray if they are not selected by the party leaders. Botcha has asked local MLAs to deal with rebels who are not inclined to withdraw from the electoral fray.

Botcha held discussions with leaders in Anantapur MP constituency in the morning on Monday and in the afternoon, he met leaders from Hindupur parliamentary constituency.

The situation in the TDP camp is different and the leaders are yet to take stock of the situation as not many are evincing interest or clamouring for party tickets.

However, in case of Anantapur Municipal Corporation, the situation is different, party aspirants from TDP are trying to not only put up a tough fight to the YSRCP but are also confident of winning majority of corporation seats under the leadership of ex-MLA V Prabhakar Chowdhury as it was the TDP that ruled the corporation during the last term.

They are also confident of recapturing the AMC on the strength of their performance and the many things they have to their credit on the city development front.

Meanwhile the district election returning officer and collector Gandham Chandrudu is also in cooperation with SP B Sathya Yesu Babu have been on the job of conducting elections successfully to the civic bodies just as they successfully conducted the gram panchayat elections in a peaceful manner.