Local body polls in Andhra: TDP breaches YSRCP’s fortress of Pulivendula after four decades

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The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has finally breached the YS family fortress in Pulivendula by winning the municipal chairperson seat, after a gap of over four decades.

After three rounds of counting on Tuesday, TDP candidate T. Geetha Kumari achieved a historic victory by defeating YSRCP’s Y.S. Prameelamma, aunt of party president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, with a huge majority of 13,875 votes.

While Ms. Geetha Kumari got 25,434 votes in her favour out of the total 37,992 votes polled, Ms. Prameelamma got 11,559 votes. The votes of 833 persons were considered invalid, while 166 voters opted for none of the above (NOTA).

Before the elections, TDP candidates were unanimously elected in 20 of the total 40 wards in Pulivendula Municipality. Of the remaining 20 wards, TDP emerged victorious in 14, while YSRCP, Jana Sena Party and BJP won three, one and two wards respectively.

Earlier, the YSRCP leaders had appealed the Andhra Pradesh High Court to direct the State Election Commissioner (SEC) to conduct re-polling in all wards of Pulivendula and suspend the counting process until repolling. However, the court has dismissed the petitions.

Meanwhile, cases were filed against 72 leaders of the YSRCP, including Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy and Kadapa MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy, on the charge of the violation of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) during the polls on Sunday. The investigation is underway.

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