Triangular fight in Thamballapalle

Tirupati: The backward and severely drought hit Thamballapalle Assembly constituency in Chittoor district was all set for a tough fight between sitting TDP MLA G Shankar Yadav and YSRCP's Peddireddy Dwarakanatha Reddy, who is contesting for the first time.

Here, Jana Sena's Viswam Prabhakar Reddy was also expected to make his presence felt strongly.

Congress party candidate MN Chandrasekhar Reddy and BJP's D Manjunath are also in the fray.

During 2014 elections, G Shankar Yadav of TDP has won the seat defeating AV Praveen Kumar Reddy of YSRCP by a margin of 9,190 votes.

Interestingly, these two candidates have contested the previous election in 2009 also but parties were different.

In that elections, Praveen had contested on TDP ticket and won the seat defeating Shankar, who contested on Congress ticket.

After bifurcation, Shankar joined the TDP and got the ticket whereas Praveen had joined YSRCP after he won the election on TDP ticket in 2009.

Ignoring the whip issued by the party during the time of voting on no-confidence motion against then Congress government, he voted in favour of it while TDP took neutral stand at that time.

He was disqualified as he violated the whip.

This time, Praveen Kumar Reddy has made several attempts to get TDP ticket again, but he failed in his efforts.

Though, there were rumours till the name of the candidate was announced that Shankar may not get it as he was facing good results in IVRS, he succeeded in pressurising the party high command by taking his followers to Amaravati and got the ticket finally.

Peddireddy Dwarakanath Reddy, who is the brother of senior leader and sitting Punganur MLA Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, has got the YSRCP ticket and expected to give a tough fight to Shankar. After the inception of TDP in 1983, the party has won the seat four times.

While Praveen elected as MLA once, his mother AV Lakshmi Devamma has won twice in 1985 and 1994.

The Congress won two times and independents on two occasions.

Between 1955 and 1978, five elections were held in which Congress had won four and an independent once.

Keeping in view the victory of independents in three elections here, the main party candidates are leaving no stone unturned to ensure their victory.

This time, Jana Sena candidate Prabhakar Reddy, who was well known with his educational institutions was also considered to be a potential candidate and was also in the race along with TDP and YSRCP candidates.

Located at the border of Kadapa-Anantapur-Karnataka, the BC dominated constituency was known for its continuous droughts for over several years.

The main problem in the constituency was water and the people were looking for Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi water.

They are yet to be released into Piler Canal.

Out of 15,000 drinking water borewells, more than 10,000 have dried up showing the gravity of the drought situation.

During the last five years, several cement roads were laid in the constituency and double roads to mandal headquarters.

The constituency has 2,09,834 voters after final revision among which 1,05,151 are female and 1,04,670 male voters.

There are 13 transgenders also.

The election authorities have made all arrangements for conducting free and fair polls and 263 polling stations will be set up to make the people to exercise their franchise comfortably.