KAKINADA: The Telugu Desam scored a massive victory in the Kakinada Municipal Corporation elections, grabbing the civic body after a gap of 25 years, continuing the trend that began with the Nandyal Assembly bypoll last week. The party contested from 45 of the 48 wards in the city and won 32. Alliance partner BJP won three of the nine wards it contested in. Three rebel TD candidates also won the elections that were held on Friday.
The opposition YSRC managed to get 10 divisions. At one point of time it looked like the party would not make the double-digit mark. The Congress which won the polls thrice in succession from 1995 to 2005 could not muster even 100 votes in each division. Elections were held to the KMC for the first time after 2010. The TD won a total of 69,534 votes, the YSRC 50,944 and the BJP 7,813 votes. The Congress won a total of 602 votes in 48 wards, the CPI 177, CPM 78 votes, Bahujan Samaj Party 215 and Indepen-dents, 19,219 votes.
Deputy Chief Minister Nimmakayala Chinara-jappa attributed the win to the trust that the voters had in Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his development and welfare activities. He said that the party had not expected this thumping win. He said that the people had not accepted YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s leadership. Kakinada MLA Vanama-di Venkateswara Rao said the TD government has done a lot to develop Kakinada City in the past three-and-a-half years. YSRC district president K. Kannababu said the TD won due to ‘misuse of power’. He said the margins of victory were slim.
