Welfare mantra' keeps Jagan juggernaut rolling

VIJAYAWADA: The massive victory of the YSR Congress in the Parishad elections, the latest in a series that began with the triumph in the Assembly elections, shows, among other things that the people showed their support for the way the government managed the Coronavirus crisis, and continued welfare schemes despite the massive financial crunch.

The Opposition had hoped that there would be a negative impact because of ‘administrative failures of the government and myriad court litigations.

In the panchayat elections, which were held on a non-party basis, YSRC sympathisers cornered a majority of sarpanch and ward member posts. In March, the ruling party had scored a landslide victory in the urban local body elections with the Tirupati Lok Sabha byelection win adding to the jubilation. MPTC and ZPTC results have come as icing on the cake. It was a long-drawn legal battle for the ruling party which subsequently overcame ‘hurdles’ created by the Election Commission and the Telugu Desam.

The results showed that the hold of TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu was on the wane even in his bastion Kuppam constituency, where TD sympathisers secured just 14 of 89 panchayats that went to polls. A bigger shock for Naidu was that in his native village, Naravaipalle, the MPTC seat was won by YSRC, whose candidate Rajaiah polled 1,347 votes against the TD nominee’s 307 votes. Of the four mandals in Kuppam segment, YSRC recorded a clean sweep in two whereas it won 32 of the 37 seats in the remaining two mandals.

For the first time and delivering a major setback to TD, the ruling party grabbed Nimmakuru MPTC in Pamarru, which is the native place of TD founder N.T. Rama Rao. Jana Sena flopped in Bhimavaram, which is Pawan Kalyan’s home constituency. YSRC grabbed 14 of 18 MPTCs while Jana Sena won three with TD taking the other one.  Meanwhile, the state TD president K. Atchennaidu was at the receiving end in his native Tekkali constituency where YSRC won all the four ZPTCs.