TD comes back on a thumping note, wins all three graduate constituencies
Anantapur/ Tirupati: The Telugu Desam won all the three graduate constituencies for the legislative council for which counting was held till early hours of Saturday.
The biggest surprise was the TD-backed Bhumireddy Ramgopal Reddy, native of Pulivendula, who trailed initially but won the Rayalaseema West Graduate MLC seat with a 7,543-vote majority against his nearest YSRC rival V. Ravindra Reddy.
Returning officer and Anantapur district collector Naga Lakshmi declared results in the night while the YSRC candidate along with his followers staged protest at the RO demanding recounting of votes from the seventh round where staff mixed YSRC votes into the TD candidate table. Lakshmi refused and made it clear that results will be announced after getting clearance from the state election commission.
Though YSRC candidate got majority in the first round he could not get more than 50 per cent of votes and the elimination rounds turned the tables after BJP and PDF supported candidates’ second priority votes’ favoured TD candidate in all subsequent rounds. TD candidate Ramgopal Reddy secured 1,09,781 votes while YSRC’s Ravindra Reddy got 1,02,238 votes.
Tirupati reports said the TD candidate Kancharla Srikanth won the MLC Rayalaseema East seat (Prakasam-Nellore-Chittoor). He won by 34,110 votes majority against his nearest rival Pernati Shyam Prasad Reddy of YSRC during second priority vote counting at the RVS Engineering college in Chittoor.
Kancharla Srikanth was leading since the first round of the counting. However, he could not get 50 per cent of the total polled votes during first priority. After the second priority counting, Srikanth got 1,24,181 votes and Shyam Prasad 90,071 votes while Progressive Democratic Front candidate Meegada Venkateswara Reddy finished third.
Returning officer and Chittoor district collector M. Hari Narayanan handed over the winning declaration to Chowdary.
For the north Andhra graduates constituency, TD- backed Vepada Chiranjeevi Rao posted a comfortable win over his YSRC rival Seethamraju Sudhakar.
Chiranjeevi established a lead of 27,209 votes in the first preference votes winning 82,958 votes while YSRC-backed Seethamraju Sudhakar polled 55, 749. The PDF-backed Koredla Ramaprabha polled 35,749 votes. Sitting MLC and BJP-backed P.V.N. Madhav polled 10, 258 votes and lost his deposit. In the second preferential vote Chiranjeevi reached the magic figure of 94,509.
As per the regulations, 786 votes from 32 independent candidates, 3,000 from BJP’s PVN Madhav and 8,000 from PDF candidate Rama Prabha were deducted and added to the account of Chiranjeevi.
“I feel proud to be elected by people from 34 Assembly segments in north coastal Andhra,’’ Chirnajeevi said later.
