Vijayawada: The electoral battle in capital Vijayawada this time is between the Kesineni brothers -- Kesineni Srinivas, or Nani, and Kesineni Sivanath or Chinni.
The two were once associated with the Telugu Desam but are now on rival sides. Nani represents the YSR Congress and Chinni the Telugu Desam. The fight between the businessmen brothers has generated a lot of political heat here this time.
Kesineni Nani represented Vijayawada in the Lok Sabha twice, both times as TD member. He was keen on scoring a hat-trick but TD chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu decided to field Sivanath this time.
Early this year, Nani himself revealed that Naidu decided against giving the ticket to him. He promised that he would abide by the leader’s directions. But things turned upside down. The supporters of the two brothers clashed when Naidu appointed Chinni as constituency in-charge in place of Nani.
The YSRC was searching for a strong candidate for the Vijayawada MP seat, a bastion of TD. Even in the Jagan wave in 2019, TD won the Vijayawada LS seat with Nani as its candidate.
In view of the denial of a TD ticket for the 2024 elections, Nani quit the party. Soon, he met chief minister Jagan Reddy and joined the YSRC. The ruling party lapped up the opportunity to cash in on the chinks in the Kesineni family and TD, and declared Nani as its candidate.
Chinni, who worked in TD under the shadow of his elder brother for long, opened up and started targeting Nani after the latter made some serious allegations against Chandrababu Naidu.
Interestingly, Nani slammed Chandrababu for creating a rift in the Kesineni family, but Chinni countered it by saying that there have been disputes in the family since 1999.
Chinni claimed that it was despite several complaints that Naidu gave Nani the opportunity for two terms. “Nani should have been grateful to the TD chief, but he resorted to mudslinging against Chandrababu and Lokesh.”
“I never had any aspirations to compete with my brother. He distanced himself from the party and its cadres. He never bothered to participate in party programmes including the Mahanadu,” said Chinni, explaining the reasons that led to Nani being denied re-nomination.
Chinni said he left the family’s travel business to Nani by taking a very meagre share.
Meanwhile, Nani claimed that the people of the Vijayawada parliament segment viewed the development for the past ten years and CM Jagan’s governance for the past five years. He expressed confidence that he would win the elections with the support of the public.
Highlights
Vijayawada was once a stronghold of Congress; it won Vijayawada LS seat nine times
TD bagged the seat five times
In 2014, Nani won the seat, defeating nearest rival Koneru Rajendra Prasad of YSRC by a margin of over 74,000 votes
In 2019, Nani’s margin of victory came down to 8,726; Prasad V Potluri of YSRC was runner-up
Vijayawada was one of the only three Lok Sabha seats (out of 25) won by the TD in 2019
