Assembly polls will be held simultaneously with Lok Sabha Elections in Andhra Pradesh, with the Election Commission of India announcing dates on Sunday.
Elections to the 175 Assembly seats and the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh, which will see a single-phase election, will be held on April 11, 2019. Results to the Assembly and Lok Sabha Elections will be announced on May 23, 2019, with the counting of votes taking place on the same day.
According to the notification, the date of issue of the gazette notification is March 18, 2019. The last day of nomination for Assembly and Lok Sabha Elections is March 25 and the last date of withdrawing nominations for both assembly and Lok Sabha is March 28, 2019.
Andhra has 175 Assembly constituencies and 25 Lok Sabha seats. The state will see a multi-cornered fight. The ruling TDP led by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu will square off against Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSRCP. Also, in the fray are the Congress, Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena, which has tied up with Left parties, and the BJP.
The state has witnessed a shake-up in poll alliances after the TDP pulled out of the NDA in 2018 after the Centre refused to grant special status to Andhra. While Naidu’s party has voiced support for the Congress-led alliance at the national level, the two parties have chosen to contest independently in Andhra. This after the poll debacle in neighbouring Telangana, where the Prajakutami alliance which comprised of the Congress and the TDP failed to garner much support.
The 2019 elections are the first in the residual state of Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation in 2014. The TDP won the 2014 Assembly Elections with a comfortable majority of 102 seats, while YSRCP won 67. In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, united Andhra which had a total of 42 seats, saw TDP win 16, TRS 11, YSRCP 9, BJP 3, and Congress 2.