Visakhapatnam East Assembly constituency: a keen tussle on the cards in the TDP bastion

Visakhapatnam East Assembly constituency: TDP stronghold challenged by YSRCP, highlighting development promises and campaign strategies for upcoming elections.

The Visakhapatnam East Assembly constituency, one of the four prime Assembly constituencies in the heart of the city, has been the TDP’s fortress for the last 15 years. The present sitting MLA Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu, who is from the ‘Kamma’ community strongly survived the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) wave in the year 2009 and YSRCP waves during the last two elections, though the Opposition party candidates were from the ‘Yadava’ community, which has a huge number of voters in the constituency.

Very well ahead of the elections, the YSRCP high command had appointed the present Visakhapatnam MP M.V.V. Satyanarayana as the constituency in-charge, ignoring three important ‘Yadava’ community leaders, including MLC Vamsi Krishna Srinivas Yadav, Mayor Golagani Hari Venkata Kumari and former Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority (VMRDA) Chairperson A Vijaya Nirmala.

Mr. Satyanarayana has been vigorously taking part in the election campaigning for more than three months.

Coordinating with the local YSRCP corporators, ward presidents, in-charges, Mr Satyanarayana has been touring every ward as part of a door-to-door campaign, ‘Gadapa Gadapa Ki Mana Prabhutvam’.

Apart from financially assisting the needy and helpless, he has also been initiating development works through his MPLADS funds and is also explaining what has the YSRCP done in the last five years.

The TDP MLA has also started campaigning and is organising door-to-door canvassing regularly. The TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh had also organised ‘Shankavaram’ in the constituency during February. Community coordinating programmes like ‘BC Garjana’ and ‘Jayaho BC’ were also conducted..

MP candidates from both the parties, Botcha Jhansi Lakshmi (YSRCP) and M. Sribharat (TDP), have also been conducting ward visits as part of the campaign in this constituency in support of their party candidates.