Ongole deserves best, only TDP can offer it says Damacharla Janardhana Rao

Ongole : The TDP candidate for the Ongole Assembly constituency, Damacharla Janardhana Rao, feels that it is only his party that is committed to the development of the town, and the nearby beach villages which are part of the constituency. He says that if the ruling party has any gratitude towards the people who elected its candidate, it should have completed the development works that were in the final stages of the completion and would have given funds to take up other activities, but nothing has been done.

The Ongole Assembly constituency came into existence when the Andhra region was part of the Madras state, and Communist Party of India’s leader Kasukurti Malakondaiah was elected as the first MLA.

After the formation of the Andhra state in 1953, the son of the soil, Andhra Kesari Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu was appointed as the chief minister of the state and won as the MLA in the elections held in 1955, from the Indian National Congress. In the elections held 17 times for the Ongole Assembly constituency, Congress won eight times, TDP won four times, independents won two times, the YSR Congress Party two times and CPI once.

The Ongole town has been waiting for the development for decades. As the migration to the town increased, several slums have sprung up in the suburbs and are still waiting for the proper infrastructure. In summer, the people in the slum colonies suffer from the shortage of drinking water supply, mosquitoes and power cuts and flash floods from Pothuraju Kalva in the monsoon.

As most of the houses are temporary structures, they are also victims of cold nights in the winter. The promises of decent housing to the poor and eligible families in the town have been unfulfilled for decades. The modernisation of Pothuraju Kalva, completion of drinking water pipelines, fishing harbour at the Kothapatnam beach, and streamlining of traffic in the town are just a few demands of the locals but they remain dreams for years.

An engineer by education, Damacharla Janardhana Rao is the grandson of former minister Damacharla Anjaneyulu. He started his political career at Kondapi, after the demise of his grandfather, but shifted to Ongole after Kondapi constituency was reserved for SCs in the reorganisation of constituencies in 2009. He contested in the byelections held in 2012, after the formation of the YSR Congress Party, but was defeated.

In 2014, he won with a majority of 12,428 votes against YSRCP sitting MLA Balineni Srinivasa Reddy. After his defeat in 2019, he is now all set to contest in 2024 on the TDP ticket.

In a brief interview with The Hans India, Janardhana Rao spoke out his heart about his promises to the people. He said that in 2014, he released a local manifesto highlighting five promises to construct a waste dumping yard, provide drinking water daily, housing to every family, construct a bridge on Kothapatnam road so that the locals need not worry about transport in monsoon, and modernise Pothuraju Kalva that goes through the town.

He said that apart from taking up development works worth of Rs 2,600 crore like widening roads, arranging dividers, lighting and constructing electrical substations, and drainage systems, he fulfilled the promise of a dumping yard, but almost completed the remaining.

He said that the drinking water pipeline works from Gundlakamma were just about 2 km due while the TIDCO housing project and the bridge over the stream on Kothapatnam road were completed more than 70 per cent and 80 per cent respectively. He said that the TDP government has issued the financial department approvals too for the modernisation of Pothuraju Kalva, but the works haven’t started yet.

Janardhana Rao said that he is going to seek the votes from the people with the promises to complete the pending works in his earlier term, and to improve the drainage, drinking water and sanitation and housing facilities. He said that he already has a proposal approved by the TDP leadership to take up the underground drainage system in Ongole, once their government is formed.