CM N Chandrababu Naidu keeps an ear to the ground

Amaravati: With seat-sharing among the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners finalised for Andhra Pradesh’s 123 urban local bodies (ULBs), Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu has stepped up the exercise to zero in on candidates who will enter the electoral fray, relying on grassroots-level feedback, public opinion, and party’s internal assessment.

The distribution of seats gives the TDP 89 ULBs, the Jana Sena Party 25, and the BJP nine. The arrangement accounts for 72.35 per cent of the ULBs for the TDP, 20.33 per cent for Jana Sena, and 7.32 per cent for the BJP. With the allocation settled, the focus has shifted from negotiations among the alliance partners to the larger task of selecting candidates who command local support.

Minister and TDP working president Nara Lokesh and party state unit president Palla Srinivasa Rao began the preparatory exercise on Friday in coordination with Naidu. The party is drawing on its existing internal data while gathering fresh inputs from different sources, including feedback from grassroots-level workers and public opinion collected through an Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS).

The selection exercise extends beyond the mayoral and municipal chairperson posts to corporator and councillor positions in individual wards.

The leadership is assessing candidates on their public standing, leadership abilities, capacity to perform, and commitment to public service, rather than relying solely on party affiliation.

The stakes are particularly high in the selection of candidates for mayoral and municipal chairperson posts, which are to be filled through direct elections. The personal image and public acceptability of the candidates could therefore become important considerations in the alliance’s choices.

While Naidu is overseeing the broader exercise in consultation with Lokesh and Palla Srinivasa Rao, the selection of corporator and councillor candidates will be handled at the district level. Names will be finalised after consultations with local leaders and announced locally.

The alliance partners are now concentrating on building their candidate lists for the constituencies allocated to them. For the TDP leadership, the immediate challenge while selecting candidates across the state is to balance local political calculations and cadre expectations with public feedback.

The party views the local elections as an important test of its organisation at the grassroots level and of the NDA’s stated “triple-engine” governance model.

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The Hans India