Will Nandyal result impact Kakinada?

Kakinada: The election to the Kakinada Municipal Corporation scheduled to be held on August 29 is likely to be overshadowed by the outcome of Nandyal byelection for which counting of votes will take place on Monday. The campaign for the municipal elections came to a screeching halt on Sunday with the contesting parties retreated from the high-pitched electioneering.

Around 2.30 lakh urban voters will exercise their franchise in the Tuesday’s polling. The YSRCP is facing the elections singlehandedly while the ruling TDP and the BJP forged an alliance. When the TDP promised to give mayor post to Kapus, aggrieved over quota issues even as the YSRCP chooses to keep cards close to its chest.

As the battle lines are drawn, the TDP and YSRCP are in for a straight fight. Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, hailing from the Backward Classes, led the electioneering from the TDP in the backdrop of Kapu-BC conflict which reined in the Godavari delta.

Incidentally, Kapu quota movement leader Mudragada Padmanabham was at his best to keep the embers of his movement alive in the run up to the elections by reviving his movement and courting arrest.

Both the ruling and the opposition parties are worried over the influence of the bypoll on the civic body elections since their fortunes will be made public by the time the polling begins in Kakinada. “The influence of the Nandyal election outcome on the Kakinada municipal election is certain. We have no worries yet as our winning is a foregone conclusion”, asserted a TDP senior leader.

An election analyst told The Hans India that the urban areas are sanctuaries of indecisive voters unlike in the rural parts. “These fence sitters are bound to be influenced by the Nandyal election outcome”, he commented. There is a feeling in some sections that voting for losing parties will be a futile exercise. These sections are susceptible to be swayed by the latest poll outcomes, the analyst observed.

P Krishna Prasad, who retired as Professor in Public Administration from Andhra University, dismisses this theory. The voter behaviour in the faction-ridden Rayalaseema region and the Godavari delta area is completely dissimilar. The voter in Rayalaseema is bound by faction loyalties and influenced by family rule and more so in Nandyal. When it comes to Kakinada, faction is alien and dominance of families like Rayavaram Munsif in politics became a cliché now, he explained. The family dominance is replaced by groups of families in the political landscape in the Godavari delta region over a period.

Krishna Prasad said the Godavari delta voters have the proclivities of sailing along the tide with an enterprising nature. Therefore, it is local issues and selection of candidates at the grassroots level that matter in any civic election unlike in Assembly and Lok Sabha segments held at macro level where the saleability of top leaders of the parties which influence course of election, he added. Will the outcome in Nandyal and Kakinada remain a signpost for the upcoming 2019 general elections? It is a subject matter of discussion.

By G Nagaraja