It's woman Vs woman in Singanamala

Singanamala (Anantapur): The total population of Singanamala rural constituency with zero urban votes is 2,92,414. It is a SC reserved constituency and ration of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) is 18.28 and 2.65 per cent respectively. As per the voters list of 2018, the total number of voters is 2,13,919 and the number of polling stations is 274.

The percentage of voter turnout in 2014 elections was 84 and 83.71 percent respectively in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. The vote share of BJP, Congress, YSRCP and TDP in 2014 elections was 0 per cent, 1.23 per cent, 46.35 per cent and 48.94 per cent in Assembly elections.

In Lok Sabha polls, the vote share of BJP, Congress, YSRCP and TDP was 0 per cent, 1.62 per cent, 45.81 per cent and 49.63 per cent respectively. Yamini Bala is the sitting MLA. Bandaru Sravani is the TDP candidate in the Singanamala constituency and Jonnalagadda Padmavathy is the YSRCP candidate. Sake Sailajanath is the Congress candidate.

Singanamala segment is one of the two reserved SC constituencies of the total 14 Assembly constituencies in the district. It had been a reserved constituency since 1978 and the past 40 years had seen several SC MLAs serving as Ministers in Andhra Pradesh cabinet both in Congress and TD governments.

In 1978, it was first declared as an SC reserved constituency with one Rukmini Devi of Jana Morcha Party elected as an MLA. In 1985, K Jayaram of TDP elected as MLA. He served as a Minister in the NT Rama Rao cabinet. In 1989, P Samanthakamani was elected as MLA. She too served as a Minister in the Congress government.

In 1994 and 1999, Jayaram was elected MLA and in 1999 he served as a Minister in Chandrababu's cabinet. In 2004 and in 2009, S Sailajanath of the Congress was elected as MLA. He too served as a Minister in the Rosaiah and Kiran Kumar Reddy governments.

In 2014, when Chandrababu returned as Chief Minister, Yamini Bala, daughter of former MLA Samanthakamani, was the MLA. She is also the Government Whip in the Assembly. The Singanamala constituency has 2.92 lakh voters out of which SC voters are 70,000 spread across six mandals of Singanamala, Yellanur, Putlur, Narpala, Bukkarayasamudram and Garladinne.

Presently, two women representing TDP and YSRCP, who are educated and influential, are facing each other in the interesting battle of ballot in 2019. BJP hardly has any presence and Jana Sena has support of a particular community, who are strong in Singanamala mandal.

But Jana Sena's presence will only divide the votes of TDP, who otherwise are inclined to vote for TDP. The elections in 2019 is the last for SC candidate nomination as the constituency will be de-reserved and will be a general category seat in 2024 election.

The fact of the matter is a constituency reserved for SCs is that it did not witness remarkable development despite every MLA elected from this constituency served as a Minister. Since the HLC Canal passes through all the mandals in this constituency, it has transformed agriculture lands into a green belt and benefited both land lords and small farmers. Sweet oranges and bananas are grown in most of the fields.

Jonnalagadda Padmavathy of YSRCP joined the party in 2014 and contested unsuccessfully against Yamini Bala of the TDP. She lost by a narrow margin of 4,584 votes and had since been serving the constituency by being active in public life. Bandaru Sravani is relatively a new comer and at the behest of sitting MP JC Diwakar Reddy, she was given the Singanamala constituency ticket by the TDP.