Mekapati, Bollineni lock horns at Udayagiri

Nellore: A fierce poll battle will be witnessed between YSRC senior politician Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy of YSRC and TD sitting legislator Bollineni Rama Rao at Udayagiri constit-uency in Nellore district.

The backward constituency, located closer to the borders of Kadapa and Prakasam, always find place in the first list of drought prone segments.

The area is popular for large-scale migrations to other places in search of livelihood because of lack of opportunities in the region. Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu became a legislator for the first time when he contested in Janata ticket in 1978.

Former Nellore MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy also won from the constituency in 1985 from the Congress. His brother and YSRC nominee Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy lost the seat to his nearest TD rival K. Vijayarami Reddy in the 1999 polls. He went on to bag the seat in 2004 and 2009 polls in Congress ticket and in 2012 by polls, on behalf of YSRC, with comfortable majority.

The positive aspects for Chandrasekhar Reddy are an engineering coll-ege run by his family at Udayagiri and his accessibility to the electorate.

In addition to this, some of his arch rivals such as Chiranjeevi Reddy, who worked against Mekapati in 2014 elections, joined in YSRC and worked for the success of the party.

In case of Bollineni Rama Rao, the election is a litmus test for him in view of the adverse publicity he got due to ACB cases against his company over irregularities in irrigation works pertaining to Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation in Maharastra.

Though ACB made it clear that after the investigation, there was no role of Rama Rao’s firm in the recent scam, the issue became a weapon for the Opposition to attack the legislator. They also criticised him for his absence in the segment most of the times due to his business activities.

In fact, TDP also dilly dallied over allotting the seat to Rama Rao till the last minute due to all these factors as well as demand for a ticket from two more contenders aspiring for a seat in the party.

It remains to be seen whether these leaders will extend their support sincerely to Rama Rao. Apart from TDP and YSRC candidates, Guru Prasad of Jana Sena and Gundlapalli Bharat Kumar of BJP are also in the fray.

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