The YSR Congress party led by former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, which suffered a humiliating defeat in the recent state assembly elections winning just 11 out of 175 assembly seats, has now got a chance to regain some lost pride.
The YSRCP has a possibility of winning the elections to the state legislative council seat from the local bodies’ constituency of combined Visakhapatnam district, for which the Election Commission of India issued a notification on Tuesday.
The seat has fallen vacant as YSRCP disqualified Vamsi Krishna Srinivas, a former elected MLC from YSRCP, after he joined Jana Sena Party (JSP).
The model code of conduct (MCC) came into immediate effect from Tuesday in Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli and ASR districts.
As per the schedule issued by the Election Commission, the by-election notification will be released on August 6 and the acceptance of nomination papers will start from the same day.
August 13 is the deadline for receipt of nomination papers. August 14 is the last date for the nomination withdrawal, and 16 was fixed as a deadline for scrutiny.
The by-election will be held on August 30 from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. The counting of votes will be on September 3. The whole election process is expected to be completed by September 6.
All said and done, the YSRCP still has strong presence in the local bodies in the combined Visakhapatnam district, as it had won maximum number of corporators in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, municipal councillors in Yelamanchili and Narsipatnam municipalities, besides ZPTCs and MPTs.
Out of the total number of 841 votes, the YSRCP has a strength of 615, while the TDP and Jana Sena Party have only 215 votes. There are 11 vacancies in these local bodies. So, the YSRCP has all the chances of winning the MLC seat.
However, the TDP and its allies are trying to lure as many YSRCP voters as possible ahead of the MLC elections.
Already, 12 YSRCP corporators in the GVMC defected to the TDP and Jana Sena Party. It would be interesting to see how many MPTCs, ZPTCs and councillors of the YSRCP would defect to the alliance.
YSRCP is expected to field former ministers Gudivada Amarnath or Budi Muthyala Naidu, whereas the TDP is likely to field Gandi Babji for the by-election to the MLC seat.
