Visakhapatnam: The robust voter turnout in the north coastal Andhra Pradesh graduates’ constituency elections has left the parties guessing about their prospects on the D-day (counting day), March 20. The multi-cornered election, which had seen a modest voter turnout of 42 per cent in 2011, has now crossed the 69 per cent mark. Coming as a huge surprise, the current polling percentage has even bettered the MLC elections in 2007.
According to the observers, the increased poll percentage is expected to give some advantage to the BJP-TD alliance, even if it alone is not sufficient to bag the seat for them. The TD-BJP alliance, which lagged far behind than other political parties in campaigning in the beginning, had aggressively electioneered a few days before the polling day. The increased voter turnout was partly attributed to the alliance’s aggressive push for voter turnout as it took the elections as a serious affair before the upcoming GVMC elections.
On the other hand, the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF) candidate A. Aja Sharma of CPM, who is considered as the frontrunner in the MLC elections, has been banking on their traditional vote bank – employee and trade unions. The Left parties’ link with these associations and unions can be gauged from the huge majority victories of CPM leader M.V.S. Sarma from the same constituency in 2007 and 2011 elections when the Congress was sweeping every election in Andhra Pradesh. These associations comprise some 60,000 voters of the total 1.55 lakh electorate.
After vigorous campaigning, MLC Congress candidate Yedla Adiraju and independent candidate V. Venkataramanamurthy were also hopeful of their victory. According to observers, the votes secured by the independent candidates can also turn the tables. In all, 1,08,874 out of total 1,55,993 voters casted their votes on March 9. Srikakulam had observed 72 per cent voter turnout, Vizianagaram 70.4 percent and Visakhapatnam 68.5 per cent. Places like Anantagiri, Dumbriguda, etc. recorded more than 80 percent voting.
Being a multi-cornered contest with more than 30 candidates testing their electoral waters, the parties have tried their best to appeal to each section of the graduate voters. They have even gone beyond the traditional methods such as Apps, toll-free numbers, messaging services, etc. to reach the maximum number of voters.
