Ongole: Kondapi, a tough nut to crack for YSRCP

Ongole : In 2019 elections, the YSRCP won 28 of the state’s 29 SC reserved Assembly constituencies. The only one that is unreachable to it is the Kondapi Assembly seat in Prakasam district. The differences in the local leadership will make the dream further distant to achieve for YSRCP in 2024 too, observe poll pundits.

Kondapi constituency, consisting of Singarayakonda, Kondapi, Tangutur, Zarugumilli, Ponnaluru and Marripudi mandals, was formed as a general constituency in 1955. It was converted into the SC reserved category in the delimitation process held in 2009. There were 2,01,634 voters in the constituency in 2019, including 1,00,764 men and 1,00,870 women. Dola Sribala Veeranjaneya Swamy of TDP won as MLA with 98,142 votes against Dr Madasi Venkaiah of YSRCP who got 97,118 votes, with a margin of 1,024 votes.

Since the formation of the constituency, the locals supported the Indian National Congress. Of the total 14 times the elections were held, the Congress won eight times, followed by TDP five times and once by the CPI.

Nallamothu Chenchu Ramanaidu won as the first MLA from Kondapi in 1955, followed by Chaganti Rosaiah Naidu in 1962 and 1967. In the 1972 elections, CPI leader Divi Sankaraih won, but Congress candidate Gundapaneni Pattabhi Ramaswamy snatched the constituency in 1978.

In 1983, the TDP wave affected Kondapi too. Maruboyina Malakondaiah won on the TDP ticket but lost to Gundapaneni Achyuta Kumar in 1985. In 1989, Achyuta Kumar won again in 1989, followed by Damacharla Anjaneyulu of TDP in 1994 and 1999.

Pothula Ramarao and Gurrala Venkata Seshu from Congress won in Kondapi in 2004 and 2009. With the support of the Damacharla family, Dola Sribala Veeranjaneya Swamy won two times already in 2014 and 2019 on TDP ticket and is preparing for hat-trick in 2024.

The YSR Congress Party has been trying to influence the locals in favour of its candidate for over a decade, but to no avail. The analysts point out that the disputes between the ground-level leadership in the YSRCP are the reason for its failure. In 2014, the voters preferred the TDP candidate Swamy to YSRCP candidate Jupudi Prabhakar Rao.

In 2019, the YSRCP fielded Dr Madasi Venkaiah instead of Varikuti Ashok Babu but failed to gather the support of the local leaders. Since then, the groups of Ashok Babu and Venkaiah are opposing one another and became a headache for the party. To settle the issue for once and all, YSRCP brought Dr Audimulapu Suresh as the in-charge for the constituency.

Suresh, a native of Markapuram, has a history of winning at Santhanuthalapadu and Yerragondapalem, both SC-reserved constituencies, in the district, and successfully uniting the cadres. The YSRCP believes that Audimulapu Suresh will do his magic again, and enter the TDP fortress Kondapi this time but it depends on the cooperation of the groups in the party cadre.