Vijayawada: The Vijayawada West Assembly segment is set to witness a big battle between Sk Asif of the YSRC and former Union minister Y. Sujana Chowdary.The YSRC is hopeful of retaining the seat as the minorities are a large presence in the constituency.
Vijayawada West had not been very kind to the Telugu Desam. It won the seat only once, during the formation of TD in 1983.
The Congress triumphed there three times, the YSRC twice, the Praja Rajyam once and CPI three times.
This time, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy shifted Vijayawada West MLA Vellampalli Srinivas Rao to Vijayawada Central segment and brought former YSRC corporator Asif into the fray. Asif has a unique connect with the common man in the constituency. His opponent is an influential businessman, who headed the Hyderabad-based Sujana Group of industries before joining politics.
The quitting of Jana Sena by its leader Pothina Mahesh following his failure to get the ticket this time due to the alliance constraints, and his subsequent joining into the YSRC are seen as an added advantage to Asif.
Mahesh arduously worked in the West constituency for the past ten years. He lost the election in 2019 but hoped to get the JS ticket this time. Pawan Kalyan had promised to give him the ticket. But, the scenario changed due to the entry of Sujana Chowdary.
Under the alliance seat-sharing formula, the west constituency went into the BJP fold and Sujana grabbed the ticket.
The election fight now turned into a battle between the rich and the poor. Sujana, it is said, “belonged to the elite class and Asif represented the common man.”
Notably, Sujana Chowdary’s strong lobbying for the Vijayawada Lok Sabha seat did not succeed. The ticket for this key LS seat went to TD candidate Kesineni Sivanath (Chinni), who is now engaged in a direct battle with his brother Kesineni Nani. Nani made a crossover to the YSR Congress Party after TD denied him the ticket.
YSRC candidate Asif is a local and while his rival is seen as non-local. This as also the stamp of corruption came as a big disadvantage to Sujana, as the YSRC is highlighting these in its campaign.
The CPI, a part of the INDIA alliance, has also fielded its candidate B Koteswara Rao from the Vijayawada West assembly constituency. The main fight is between the YSRC and the TD-JS-BJP alliance.
The constituency has large presence of Muslims, BCs and Vysyas. A sizeable number of families are of the Jain community.
