The YSR Congress Get together (YSRCP), quickly after storming to energy in Andhra Pradesh in 2019, had set itself an bold goal of wresting the Kuppam Meeting seat from Telugu Desam Get together nationwide president and seven-time MLA from the constituency Nara Chandrababu Naidu within the 2024 elections.
The ruling get together cadre, led by Vitality Minister Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy, had since left no stone unturned and let go no alternative to counter the previous Chief Minister on his house turf, accusing him of neglecting the constituency’s growth regardless of representing it within the Legislative Meeting for seven instances and helming the State for 14 years.
The YSRCP had even introduced that its Kuppam MLC Ok.J. Bharath can be made Minister if he was voted to energy in 2024. It had accused Mr. Naidu of denying BCs a possibility to contest from Kuppam regardless of their dominant presence within the constituency.
Upping the ante, the YSRCP, banking on the slew of welfare schemes it had been implementing beneath its flagship Navaratnalu programme, got here up with the slogan, ‘Why not 175?’, aiming at decimating the opposition TDP within the 2024 elections. It additionally went a step forward and questioned, ‘Why not Kuppam?’, signalling that it had set its sights on the distinguished seat, thought of the stronghold of the TDP, and Mr. Naidu specifically.
Besides within the 1989 and 1994 Meeting elections, Mr. Naidu received the seat in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 with out campaigning there even for a single day, which was a report of kinds. The get together cadre pooled funds for his nomination and ensured his victory in each election.
With over 70% of the inhabitants within the Kuppam area unfold throughout the 4 backward mandals of Kuppam, Ramakuppam, Shantipuram, and Gudupalle, it was a cakewalk for Mr. Naidu within the constituency. Within the 2019 elections, Mr. Naidu had retained the seat although the YSRCP swept 13 of the 14 Meeting constituencies in mixed Chittoor district.
On this backdrop, the violent clashes between the TDP and YSRCP activists, both within the presence of Mr. Naidu or earlier than his proposed go to, witnessed in 2023 at Kuppam, Angallu and Punganur generated a lot political warmth within the mixed Chittoor district. Shut to at least one hundred TDP cadres had been booked in these incidents.
However his dramatic arrest for allegedly masterminding the talent growth rip-off in September 2023 and his subsequent launch from the Rajamahendravaram Central Jail after about 50 days, caused a sea change within the political situation of the Kuppam area.
The YSRCP’s political technique is discovered to be going towards public notion.
On this backdrop, Mr. Naidu, throughout his three-day go to to Kuppam in December 2023, exhorted his citizens to make sure his victory with a majority of 1 lakh votes.
The exhortation is seen as an try to reassert his place within the constituency and make gentle of the YSRCP’s ‘Why not Kuppam’ slogan.
Since Mr. Naidu’s election in Kuppam in 1989, the constituency has obtained a medical faculty, a college, highways, and garment industries. He was additionally the one who had ushered in a revolution in horticulture and floriculture with micro-irrigation schemes, declare TDP supporters.
“The political clashes in the region and the arrest of Mr. Naidu have made the TDP’s win a foregone conclusion,” the get together activists say, and consider that the individuals of Kuppam would by no means ditch Mr. Naidu.
“I had voted for Mr. Naidu in all the seven elections since 1989. When he was first elected, Kuppam was nothing but a forest. In 35 years, he had done whatever he could to develop Kuppam. The 2024 elections may be his last, as his age and health issues may keep him away from the race in 2029. I will be sinning if I do not vote for him now,” stated a 65-year-old farmer in Kuppam.
Even because the ‘last vote for Naidu’ slogan has been discovering extra takers within the constituency, hypothesis is rife that Mr. Naidu, for the primary time in his political profession, might contest from a second constituency too within the ensuing elections, and it has not been denied by the get together.
