In a development that has stunned many, including the ruling YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh, the opposition Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) lone candidate Panchumarthi Anuradha won the Legislative Council elections under MLA quota. Other winners were VV Surya Narayana Raju, Pothula Sunitha, Bommi Israel, Chandragiri Yesuratnam and Marri Rajasekhar from YSRCP. Members of the Legislative Assembly in Andhra Pradesh cast their votes for the seven Legislative Council seats on Thursday, March 23.
While the ruling party fielded seven candidates and was certain to win with a landslide, the TDP fielded one candidate hoping to win a seat. YSRCP had fielded VV Surya Narayana Raju, Pothula Sunitha, Kola Guruvulu, Bommi Israel, Jayamangala Venkataramna, Chandragiri Yesuratnam and Marri Rajasekhar.
Jayamangala Venkataramana and Kola Guruvulu polled 21 votes each, while the remaining YSRCP candidates were declared winners with 22 votes. P Anuradha secured 23 votes and was declared winner.
The ruling YSRCP has 151 seats in the 175-member Assembly and was confident that it will be able to secure the support of the four TDP rebel MLAs and the lone MLA for Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP).
On the other hand the TDP was left with 19 representatives as four of the 23 MLAs turned rebels. However, the opposition party hoped to win the support of two ruling party rebel MLAs Anam Ramanarayana Reddy and Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy. Since a candidate needs 22 votes to win the election it will still require one more vote even if both of the YSRCP rebels vote for the TDP candidate. The opposition was believed to be anticipating support from few ruling party MLAs considering its performance in three graduate council seats.
According to media reports, the ruling party assigned 22 MLAs each to one candidate so as to poll required votes to be declared as winner. Each group of 22 MLAs were led by another MLA from the group to ensure that all the MLAs cast their votes as directed. However, the two groups of MLAs assigned to Jayamangala Venkataramana and Kola Guruvulu had none of openly declared rebel MLAs from the party which is now being reviewed within the party cadres.
Jayamangala Venkataramana emerged as winner through second preferential votes.
The opposition had shocked the ruling party earlier by sweeping all three graduate MLC seats.
With inputs from IANS