Cross-Voting Denies YSRCP 25/25 In Lok Sabha

While the YSR Congress Party's fan blew the ruling TDP out of reckoning in 22 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state, three opposition MPs managed to withstand the YSRCP tsunami by a thin majority. It appears that these three TDP MPs, Kesineni Nai in Vijayawada, Galla Jayadev in Guntur and Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu in Srikakulam won mainly because of cross-voting in their constituencies.

A closer analysis throws these facts up. In Srikakulam, Rammohan Naidu retained his seat by a slender majority of 6,658 votes. In 2014, Rammohan Naidu won by a margin of 1,27,692 votes. In the 2019 elections, only 2 assembly candidates under the Srikakulam Lok Sabha seat, won the election--Ichhapuram and Tekkali constituencies.

How did the cross-voting for the TDP Lok Sabha candidate, Rammohan Naidu take place in Srikakulam?

. The TDP candidate from Ichhapuram assembly constituency got 79,405 votes in all, while Rammohan Naidu got 82,640 from the same segment. While the YSRCP candidate from here, Piriya Sairaj got 71,931 votes. YSRCP's Lok Sabha candidate fro Srikakulam got 68,570 votes from this assembly segment. Clearly, he lost 3,361 votes to cross voting.

. Similarly, In the Palasa assembly constituency, the winner, YSRCP's Dr. Sidiri Appalaraju got 75,337 votes, but the Lok Sabha candidate Duvvada Srinivas, managed to get only 65,939 votes. Again, the YSRCP Lok Sabha candidate fell short by 9,418 votes in Palasa assembly segment.

. In Pathapatnam assembly constituency, the winning candidate from YSRCP, Reddy Shanthi got 75,669 votes, while Duvvada Srinivas, the MP candidate, got 70,698 votes. TDP's candidate against the YSRCP winner got 60,975 votes, while Rammohan Naidu the LS seat winner from TDP, got 64,656 votes from this assembly segment.

. The YSRCP winner from Narsannapeta assembly constituency, Dharmana Krishna Das notched up a tally of 85,622 votes while the TDP's losing candidate got 66,597 votes. YSRCP's Lok Sabha candidate, Duvvada Srinivas got 80,855 votes, while TDP's Rammohan Naidu got 72,890 votes.

. In Srikakulam assembly constituency, Dharmana Prasada Rao the senior YSRCP leader won the seat getting 82,388 votes in all. His TDP rival, Gunda Lakshmi Devi secured 77,575 votes and Rammohan Naidu the TDP's Lok Sabha winner from Srikakulam got 84,631 votes. Duvvada Srinivas, the YSRCP's MP candidate got 75,253 votes from this segment.

. YSRCP's Tammineni Sitaram won the Amadalavalasa assembly seat getting 76,801 votes in all, while his TDP rival got 63,274 votes. The YSRCP MP candidate got 74,781 votes while TDP's winning candidate, Rammohan Naidu got 62,722 votes.

How did the Guntur arithmetic work for TDP?

YSRCP's Modugula Venugopala Reddy lost the Guntur seat to Telugu Desam's Galla Jayadev on account of cross-voting.

. Barring Guntur West, in all the 6 other assembly segments YSRCP surged ahead convincingly. Added up the majority of YSRCP candidates in these 6 assembly segments is 53,731 votes, while Galla Jayadev won with a slender majority of 4,205 votes. A closer analysis revealed that the cross-voting here added up to more than 55,000 votes.

. Another significant point is that nearly 10,000 postal ballots were cast aside as invalid by the election authorities, stating that the cover did not bear 13-C as required.

Similar narrative in Vijayawada...

In the Vijayawada Lok Sabha seat, a similar narrative played out with heavy cross-voting against YSRCP's Potluri Veera Prasad in favour of TDP's Kesineni Nani. In the assembly segments of Tiruvuru, Mylavaram, Jaggayyapeta, Nandigama, Vijayawada Central and Vijayawada West, Nani got more than the votes secured by the conntesting TDP assembly candidates. This led to the YSRCP Lok Sabha candidate, PVP's defeat.

. In Vijayawada Central and West assembly constituencies, the TDP candidates all added up got 1,21,460 votes, while the winning MP secured 1,43,307 votes, a boost of 21,847.

. In Tiruvuru, Mylavaram, Jaggayyapeta and Nandigama segments, the TDP candidate benefited from cross-voting with 8,283 votes more than the total votes polled for the MLA candidates of the party.

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