Vijayawada: The inevitable unanimous win of five MLC seats by the ruling YSRC in nine local bodies has boosted the morale of party leaders towards attaining Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s slogan “Why Not 175?”. 175 is the total number of seats in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly.
It may be recalled that after its landslide victory with 151 MLA and 22 MP seats in 2019 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, Jagan Mohan Reddy’s party continued its winning spree in panchayat, mandal parishad, zilla parishad, municipal and corporation elections. It went on to win byelections too with good majorities.
The YSRC chief then asked his party MLAs to aggressively participate in his “Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam” house-to-house campaign programme in all the Assembly constituencies with the goal of “Why Not (win all the) 175 (seats)?”
Now, winning five MLC seats unopposed from YSR Kadapa, Anantapur, Chittoor, Nellore and East Godavari districts has boosted the confidence of entire YSRC into gunning for a win from all the 175 Assembly constituencies.
The deadline for withdrawal of nominations from MLC seats is February 27. The formal announcement of the unanimous election is expected only on that day.
YSRC is expected to win the remaining four local bodies too, as it is in a dominating position in the respective constituencies. Opposition parties, including Telugu Desam, know they will lose. But they have still fielded their candidates.
Ruling party candidates who have won unanimously are Ponnapureddy Ramasubba Reddy, S. Mangamma, Sipai Subrahmanyam, Meriga Murali and Kudupudi Suryanarayana Rao.
YSRC has redoubled its efforts for winning the graduate MLC seats too, with ministers, legislators and leaders campaigning vigorously. Former deputy CM Dharmana Krishna Das is holding meetings in North Andhra and finance minister Buggana Rajendranath is concentrating in Rayalaseema region to ensure a clean sweep for the ruling party.
