Andhra Pradesh Congress president and Jagan Mohan Reddy's sister YS Sharmila and BJP state chief Purandeswari (Rajamahendravaram) are in Lok Sabha poll fray.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP is contesting on all 25 Lok Sabha seats while arch-rival TDP is contesting on 17 Lok Sabha seats as part of the alliance with BJP and JanaSena.
Telugu superstar Pawan Kalyan's party has been allocated two Lok Sabha seats as part of the alliance.
Read: View: Modi steals spotlight as NDA gathers momentum in Andhra PradeshIn 2019, the YSRCP emerged victorious in 22 seats while Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP in three Lok Sabha seats.
In January, Gidugu Rudra Raju stepped down from the post of Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) chief.
The stage is set for polling on Monday to elect 25 members of Lok Sabha from Andhra Pradesh after an intense election campaign by YSR Congress Party, the National Democratic Alliance comprising BJP, Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party and Pawan Kalyan's JanaSena Party (JSP), and the Congress. Simultaneous elections for the state assembly will also be held on May 13. Andhra Pradesh Congress president and Jagan Mohan Reddy's sister YS Sharmila and BJP state chief Purandeswari (Rajamahendravaram) are in Lok Sabha poll fray.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP is contesting on all 25 Lok Sabha seats while arch-rival TDP is contesting on 17 Lok Sabha seats as part of the alliance with BJP and JanaSena. Riding on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which drew blank in the last general elections, is in the fray for six Lok Sabha seats. Telugu superstar Pawan Kalyan's party has been allocated two Lok Sabha seats as part of the alliance.
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Read: View: Modi steals spotlight as NDA gathers momentum in Andhra Pradesh
In 2019, the YSRCP emerged victorious in 22 seats while Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP in three Lok Sabha seats.
Here are the key seats in Andhra Pradesh to watch out for:
Vijayawada
Incumbent Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas, who won last time on a TDP ticket, is in the poll fray from YSRCP. Chandrababu Naidu's party has fielded Kesineni Sivanath to take on its former leader. The Congress party is hoping to make the contest three-cornered by fielding Valluru Bhargav from Vijayawada.
Rajahmundry
Rajahmundry braces for a fierce three-way contest among Congress's Gidugu Rudra Raju, BJP state president Daggubati Purandeswari, and YSRCP's Guduri Srinivas. In January, Gidugu Rudra Raju stepped down from the post of Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) chief. When YSR was the chief minister, he served as the Chairman of Andhra Pradesh Medical Infrastructure Corporation. Within the party, he held the post of AICC Secretary and also discharged duties as in charge of Odisha. BJP candidate Purandeswari was made Andhra Pradesh unit president in the first week of July last year in place of Somu Veerraju who held that post since 2020. She joined the BJP in 2014 after resigning from the Congress. YSRCP's Guduri Srinivas is contesting for the first time from Rajahmundry Lok Sabha seat and is a political novice but a well-known pulmonologist in the city.
Kurnool
Kurnool, which was once the capital of Andhra Pradesh, will see a triangular contest among BY Ramaiah of YSRCP, Nagaraju of TDP, and PG Rampullaiah Yadav of the INDIA bloc. Sanjeev Kumar represented Kurnool as YSRCP MP but quit the party after he was denied a ticket for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, Sanjeev Kumar won the Kurnool seat with a margin of 149,067 votes. The YSRCP and the TDP are the main contenders from Kurnool.
Tirupati
The upcoming election in Tirupati, dubbed as the “Spiritual Capital of Andhra Pradesh”, witnesses a contest between YSRCP's Maddila Gurumoorthy, BJP's Vara Prasad Rao Velagapalli, and Congress's Chinta Mohan. YSRCP had initially named Koneti Adimulam as its candidate but the disgruntled leader refused to contest. He accused minister Peddireddy Ram Chandra Reddy of deception. Adimulam said, "I refuse the MP ticket offered by CM Jagan Reddy. I have taken the decision not to contest as the MP, as I have no interest in indulging in corruption and negative propaganda."
Visakhapatnam
In Visakhapatnam, a key Lok Sabha constituency in Andhra Pradesh, the ruling YSRCP's candidate, Botsa Jhansi Lakshmi, faces a tough challenge from Telugu Desam Party's Sri Bharat and Congress's P Sathyanarayana Reddy. Botsa Lakshmi, wife of YSRCP senior leader Botsa Satyanarayana, is pitted against Sri Bharat, son-in-law of actor Nandamuri Balakrishna. In the 2019 elections, YSRCP's MVV Satyanarayana won by a narrow margin, defeating TDP's Bharat Mathukumilli in a closely contested battle.
Kadapa
A high-profile battle is set to unfold in Kadapa as Congress state unit chief YS Sharmila is contesting against her cousin and incumbent YSRCP MP YS Avinash Reddy. YS Vijayalakshmi, mother of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and APCC chief YS Sharmila, has called upon the people of Kadapa Lok Sabha constituency to support her daughter in the upcoming elections. Vijayalakshmi resigned from the post of honorary president of the YSRCP and from the party's primary membership in July 2022.
