Jagan achieves a hat-trick in Pulivendula, albeit with a lower margin

YSR Congress president and Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy emerged triumphant in Pulivendula Assembly constituency by defeating former MLC Mareddy Ravindranath Reddy alias ‘B.Tech’ Ravi of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) by 61,687 votes, which, however, is the lowest victory margin ever secured by Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy in his home turf.

YSR Congress president and Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy emerged triumphant in Pulivendula Assembly constituency by defeating former MLC Mareddy Ravindranath Reddy alias ‘B.Tech’ Ravi of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) by 61,687 votes, which, however, is the lowest victory margin ever secured by Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy on his home turf.

Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy established clear leads in every round of counting, surpassing his nearest rival to achieve a hat-trick. He secured 1,16,315 votes while Mr. Ravi got 54,628 votes. Dhruva Kumar Reddy of the Congress stood at a distant third with 10,083 votes.

However, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s ambitious target of retaining his seat with more than 1 lakh votes fell flat. He won the seat with a majority of 90,110 votes in 2019 and 75,243 votes in 2014, both against the TDP’s S.V. Satish Kumar Reddy.

When his mother Y.S. Vijayalakshmi contested the 2011 by-election immediately after the YSRCP was floated, she won with a margin of 81,373 votes against Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy of the Congress. As emotions ran high around the divided YSR family then, TDP’s B.Tech Ravi stood at a distant third.

TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu projected Mr. Ravi as the candidate well in advance, giving him enough elbow room to prepare the ground in the YSR citadel. However, it is apparent that the party could not cut ice with the voters.