NDA clean sweeps GVMC Standing Committee polls

Visakhapatnam : Despite its earnest efforts to win in the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) standing committee election, the YSRCP eventually faced defeat. Stepping beyond expectations, the alliance made a clean sweep in the GVMC standing committee election by winning 10 out of 10 seats, the result of which was announced the same day evening. In the voting that took place on Wednesday, 96 members utilised their franchise out of total 98.

With CPI corporator B Ganga Rao staying away from the polls as announced and south constituency MLA Vamsi Krishna Srinivas Yadav who was elected as corporator earlier, not exercising their franchise, two members opted out from casting their vote. However, the rest utilised their franchise.

Though the YSRCP was cautious and accommodated an army of corporators in a hotel for the past two days so that there was no further defection from the party, still some of them voted for the NDA. Among the winners, Villuri Bhaskara Rao secured 66 votes and stood out. Though NDA lacked strength in the GVMC, still the NDA received 66 votes. This clearly indicates that the YSRCP corporators indulged in cross voting.

G Veera Rao, PVL Narasimham, G Polipalli, Bommidi Ramana, Balla Srinivasa Rao, S Rajasekhar, N Nooka Ratham, Lakshmibai Puli and P Mangamma won in the standing committee polls. However, YSRCP corporators alleged that the alliance government in the State behaved in a high-handed manner and managed to win in the polls despite having no strength at all. Raising their voice against it, they staged a sit-in protest at the GVMC office premises for over two hours.

They alleged that pencil marking was done during the polling exercise, while some of them used different colour sketches against norms.

Meanwhile, members of NDA maintained that people look forward to change and development and they were confident that it was possible only with the alliance government and hence the ruling alliance emerged victorious in the GVMC standing committee elections.

The NDA MLAs broke into a celebration mode as they shared sweets with the corporators and other leaders. GVMC Commissioner P Sampath Kumar gave a declaration letter to the winners on the occasion.