New Delhi: In a double-drubbing for the TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu, the incumbent party in Andhra Pradesh looks set to lose heavily in the state elections and win very few seats in the parliament elections.
Its chief rival, the YSR Congress Party, led by Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, swept the state at both the national and state level. Jaganmohan Reddy is set to be the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.
YSRCP sources have already declared that Jaganmohan Reddy will take oath as chief minister on May 30. Chandrababu Naidu has submitted his resignation.
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The YSRCP is leading in the state elections in as many as 149 seats, way above the half-way mark of 88. Their capture of the state’s assembly – which has a total of 175 seats – seems complete. The TDP is leading in just 25 seats.
And in the Lok Sabha election, the YSRCP is leading in 22 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats, with the TDP diminished to just leads in just 3 seats. The YSRCP’s win is in line with what analysts and pollsters were predicting for the state.
Let us look at some of the key takeaways from the results.
Humiliation for Naidu
The TDP’s rout is especially humiliating for the party because Naidu was at the forefront of building an anti-BJP alliance for this election. He criss-crossed the country, seeking appointments with leaders of various state parties.
In the last few weeks Naidu has met Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Sitaram Yechury, Sharad Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Maywati, Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal.
But his party is facing a clear defeat. In the state elections, Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh is looking at defeat too. He has polled 54,197 votes, while the YSRCP candidate in the lead has polled 63,633 votes.
The TDP was until recently part of the BJP-led NDA, but decided to withdraw after accusing the coalition of not delivering the promise to grant the state special category status after its bifurcation in 2014.
Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu. Credit: PTI
Congress still out for a duck
The Congress’s decimation in the state is being driven home in every election. It has not won any seats in the state since the bifurcation that was passed under the UPA government in 2014. The electorate has made their anger felt.
This is the first full fledged election in the state after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. The Congress introduced and passed the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 just before the BJP won the 2014 elections. Congress leader and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised in parliament that the residuary Andhra Pradesh state would get a ‘special category status’. The BJP also promised to do so, but did not fulfill it in their five year term. Naidu has been campaigning on this anti-BJP agenda, promising to push for this special category status.
Even the Congress Pradesh President, Raghuveera Reddy, is performing badly in the Kalyanadurgam seat. He is in third place, trailing YSRCP and TDP.
Jana Sena Party fails to make a dent
New entrant Jana Sena Party, led by actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan, is not winning big, but is placed third in some of its contested seats, with the YSRCP and TDP taking the first and second spots in both state and national elections.
Pawan Kalyan himself is trailing in the two assembly seats he is contesting – Bhimavaram and Gajuwaka. Currently he is in second place in Bhimavaram, losing to YSRCP by about 5,000 votes. In Gajuwaka, he is at third place, with YSRCP and TDP in the first and second place.
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In the parliamentary seats of Vizag, former CBI joint director Lakshminarayana has remained at third place throughout the day. He is contesting on a Jana Sena ticket and had conducted investigations against Jagan, who is likely to be the next chief minister of the state. The YSRCP candidate remains strongest in this seat and the TDP candidate is a close second.
Pawan Kalyan’s brother Nagababu is contesting from Narasapuram and has also remained in third place through the day. The first and second place candidates here were again from the YSRCP and TDP respectively.
Naidu and Jagan perform well in their constituencies
The chiefs of the TDP and YSRCP are doing well for themselves. Neither has contested a Lok Sabha seat, and their own assembly seats are safe.
While his party sinks, Naidu’s assembly seat of Kuppam is itself safe. He is the front runner by a large margin, and has polled 98,833 seats and leads by 29,993 votes.
Incoming chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy is also leading in his seat of Pulivendula by an unbeatable margin of 89,708 votes. He has polled a total of 1,31,776 votes.