Tekkali: Fighting Atchenna a Herculean Task for Duvvada in Tekkali

 Visakhapatnam: Internal bickering in the YSRC in Tekkali constituency and the strained relationship the party candidate Duvvada Srinivas has with family members are making his fight against TD’s Kinjarapu Atchannaidu very tough.

Notably, TD founder NT Rama Rao won this seat in 1994. TD’s Atchennaidu lost to Korla Revathipathi of the Congress in 2009 but he bounced back in 2014, defeating Duvvada Srinivas. He retained the seat in a fight against Perada Tilak in 2019. The 2014 victory made him a minister and a key figure in the TD. Subsequently, he became the party’s state president.

Atchennaidu and his nephew Kinjarapu Rama Mohan Naidu, who also won the Srikakulam Lok Sabha seat twice, hold the fort for the Telugu Desam in Srikakulam district after the party lost all the segments in the neighbouring Vizianagaram district.

Bendalam Ashok is another TD leader who won twice from Ichapuram.

Atchennaidu was elected as MLA from Harichandrapuram constituency for three consecutive terms – in the 1996 by-election as also in 1999 and 2004.

Following the reorganization and dissolution of the Harishchandrapuram constituency, Atchennaidu lost the 2009 elections in Tekkali. He also lost the immediate by-poll that year, which occurred due to the death of the MLA, Korla Revathipathi.

Atchennaidu’s adversaries within the party attribute his success to sidelining of important leaders and nomination of his own loyalists.

He conveniently pushed out Kala Venkata Rao from Etcherla to Cheepurupalli and got nomination to a fresher, N Eswara Rao of the BJP. Similarly, he got nomination to Gondu Shankar, a novice, by ignoring veteran leader Gunda Appala Suryanarayana and his wife Gunda Lakhmi for Srikakulam assembly seat.

In Pathapatnam, he rejected Kalamata Venkata Rama Murthy, whose father Kalamata Mohan Rao was four-time MLA and brought in a new face, Mamidi Givinda Rao.

“Though Atchennaidu belongs to the Velama community, he could win Tekkali twice. Half of the Tekkali voters are of the Kalinga community while 35 per cent voters are Velama and 10 per cent the fishermen community,’’ said a local leader.

On the other hand, Duvvada Srinivas failed to have a grip on the YSRC in the constituency. His own brother and chairman of Kalinga Welfare Corporation Duvvada Srikanth resigned from the party and joined the Telugu Desam recently. Srinivas’ strained his relationship with his wife Duvvada Vani, is a serious issue. She threatened to file nominations as an independent candidate. She was cajoled by regional coordinator YV Subba Reddy but she remains a dissident.

- Total voters-2,35,649

- Male-1,17,511

- Female-18,129

- Third gender-9