Anakapalli Constituency: Another Battle In The Land Of Freedom FightersAnakapalli, the place that started the first roar of independence, is witnessing another battle in the land of freedom fighters. The Anakappalle parliamentary constituency consists of seven Assembly seats, including a Scheduled Castes (SC) reservation seat. While the Payakaraopeta seat is reserved for the SC category, the general seats include Chodavaram, Madugula, Anakapalli, Pendurthi, Yelamanchili, and Narsipatnam. In the 2019 Assembly elections, a total of seven seats were won by the YSR Congress Party. According to the data, this constituency has over 1.4 million voters, comprising 6,89,000 male and 7,10,000 female voters. As per the 2011 census, the constituency includes SC and ST voters of 8.7% and 2.6% of the total population, respectively.
Until 2019, the Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had won the seat five and four consecutive times, respectively. In the 2019 general elections, YSRCP candidate Dr. Beesetti Venkata Satyavathi won the seat with a victory margin of 89,192 votes, securing 5,86,226 votes. She defeated Adari Anand Kumar of the TDP, who secured 4,97,034 votes. In 2009, Congress won the seat for the last time, through Sabbam Hari, with a margin of 52,912 votes, securing 3,69,968 votes. The TDP won the seat for the last time in 2014 through Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao, securing 45.9% of the total vote share.
The YSR Congress Party seeks to win the second term of the seat through the candidate Budi Muthyala Naidu, the incumbent MLA from Madugula assembly constituency and Deputy Chief Minister of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s government. YSRCP believes that the strong uphold in the total of seven assembly seats and strong election campaigns highlighting the welfare schemes of the state government will lead to the party’s second consecutive win in this constituency. Interestingly, Budi Ravi Kumar, the son of Budi Mutyala Naidu, has launched a campaign against his father on both social media and via hoardings, underscoring the complex family dynamic.
The TDP-BJP-Jana Sena Party (JSP) alliance focuses on retrieving the seat from YSRCP, by handing over the candidacy to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from TDP, the party which has won the seat for five times and emerged runner up in the last general elections. The BJP has fielded the candidate Chintakunta Muthuswami Ramesh, the former Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, and a businessman from Andhra Pradesh. The party believes that the candidature of CM Ramesh and votes of TDP and JDP together will bring victory.
In 2019 General elections, TDP has secured 4,97,034 votes through Adari Anand Kumar, JSP secured 82,588 votes through Chintala Partha Sarathi, and BJP has secured 13,276 votes through Gandhi Venkata Satyanarayana Rao. Totally, the vote share of these parties are equal to the total vote share of YSR Congress party has secured in 2019 election, which is 47.33% . However, the TDP-BJP-JSP alliance believes that the total collection of votes of tripartite alliance and campaigns led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the upcoming dates will ensure alliance success in the seat.
(This story is part of a Timeline. internship project.)