Ground Report: Anakapalle LS- Fight between guru, sishya, Velama voters to decide candidates’ fate

By SNV Sudhir:

Visakhapatnam, May 5, 2014: Contest for Anakapalle Lok Sabha seat is termed as fight between Guru and Sishya. Though Congress candidate Thota Vijayalakshmi is also in the race, contest is mainly between YSRC and TD. YSRC candidate 28 year old Gudivada  Amarnath, a B Tech graduate, studied at Avanti engineering college owned by TD Lok Sabha candidate Mutamsetti Srinivas Rao. 

Anakapalle Lok Sabha constituency had always been a strong bastion of Congress. Since 1962, Congress won the seat for nine times and TD four times. Interestingly this time candidates of all the three important parties belong to the Kapu community. There are around 14, 00214 voters in the parliamentary segment. With the Congress facing the state bifurcation blame, its candidate has become a non entity in these elections.  

  Majority of voters in the segment belong to Kapu, Velama and Gavara in the order. It is expected that the Kapu votes will be divided among the three candidates. Until now dominant Gavara votes are divided among the two varying rival families of Anakapalle- Dadi and Konatalas that were once aligned with TD and Congress respectively.

But now, after both Dadi Veerabhadra Rao and Konatala Ramakrishna joined YSRC, Gavara votes are set to go to YSRC Lok Sabha candidate.  In lieu of their support to the YSRC Lok Sabha candidate, Jagan gave assembly tickets to Rao’s son Dadi Ratnakar, who is contesting from Vizag West constituency, Konatala Ramakrishna’s brother Kontala Raghubabu to fight for Anakapalle assembly. However it has to be seen whom would the Velama crowd vote.

Until now it was Kapu vote bank that was deciding fortunes of the Anakapalle Lok Sabha candidates. Now, with three Kapu leaders in the fray, Velama votes turned out to be the deciding factor in these polls.

YSRC candidate is also banking on the party’s sway on the rural belt and the work done by his father Gudivada Gurunatha Rao, who was once the local MP. TD’s Srinivas Rao, is confident of the Anakapalle sitting MLA, Ganta Srinivasa Rao’s strong ties with locals.

“People are looking at Jaganmohan Reddy for implementation of the welfare schemes that were introduced by his late father YSR. Everyone’s want to see Jagan as chief minister and also dictate terms to the Centre and get funds to rebuild the state,” said Gudivada Amarnath.