Sitting YSRCP MLA Sreedhara Reddy may retain candidature

Puttaparthi(Sri Sathya Sai): The Assembly constituency after being carved out as Puttaparthi constituency as fallout of delimitation in 2008 had elected Palle Raghunatha Reddy of the Telugu Desam Party for two consecutive times in 2009 and 2014.

In the past Palle was the MLA of Nallamada constituency and represented it two to three times prior to 2004. He won against the Congress candidate by a margin of 1,021 votes in 2009. In 2014 too, Palle Raghunatha Reddy won over his YSRCP rival Somasekhara Reddy by a margin of 7,000 votes.

In 2019, Duddukunta Sreedhara Reddy of the YSRCP defeated Palle Raghunatha Reddy by a huge margin of 31,255 votes amidst the high tide Jagan wave which swept the State, then.

Now, for the 2024 Assembly elections, neither the TDP nor the YSRCP has announced their candidates so far.

However, the probable candidates for YSRCP and the TDP could be Duddukunta and Palle respectively. Although, a section of the party workers want a change in the candidate in TDP, the TDP leadership is thinking in terms of nomination of Palle Raghunatha Reddy's daughter-in-law Sindhura Reddy in case the party decides to change Palle's candidature.

In YSRCP, despite the talk of changing the sitting MLA, Duddukunta Sreedhara Reddy is confident of his renomination.

Ex-MLA Palle Raghunatha Reddy during 2014-19 had promised to develop Puttaparthi into an international tourist destination. He started the process but could not complete it. A master plan was formulated under the chairmanship of Palle for development and beautification of the spiritual city but the project could not be realised.

After D Sreedhara Reddy became MLA in 2019, he did take initiative for the implementation of the master plan. Instead he won over the battle between Penukonda MLA M Sankara Narayana and himself for making Puttaparthi a district headquarters. So Duddukunta is taking credit for Puttaparthi

emerging as a district headquarters.

Of course the Sathya Sai Central Trust played a decisive role in the development of the town with its trust creating infrastructure for several of its programmes and projects apart from the water projects, catering to drinking water requirements of the rural populace. The YSRCP appears to be strong in rural heartland due to its aggressive implementation of welfare schemes while it is weak in urban areas.

The ruling party and the principal opposition TDP are yet to release candidates list and are expected to do it before the end of the month. However, the prospective candidates of the mainline parties are confident of their renomination.

The two candidates are engaged in people connect programmes for quite some time. While Sreedhar

Reddy is engaged in a 10-day Padayatra to connect with farmers, the TDP candidate Palle had been on a ‘Jaiho BC Bus Yatra.’