• Home
• /
• World

Cong wiped out as TDP sweeps municipal polls in Seemandhra

Telugu Desam ally BJP calls it curtain raiser to May 16 parliamentary results.

In what is being dubbed as the curtain-raiser to the eagerly-awaited May 16 verdict for Lok Sabha and state Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Monday swept the municipal elections in Seemandhra while the Congress put up an impressive show in Telangana.

Defying all political analysis and odds, the TDP stormed to power in 62 of the 92 municipalities and five of the seven municipal corporations that went to polls in Seemandhra. The YSR Congress (YSRC) led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, which was expected to do well in Seemandhra, managed to win just 19 municipalities and two municipal corporations. The mandate in 11 other municipalities proved to be hung with both parties winning equal number of wards.

The Congress, as expected, drew a blank in Seemandhra having had to face a hostile electorate following its decision to split the state.

In Telangana, which comes into existence as the 29th state of the Indian Republic on June 2, the Congress bagged power in 16 of the 53 municipalities while its main rival the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), accounted for nine municipalities with the TDP coming a close third with seven municipalities.

In Telangana too, 19 municipalities were faced with a hung verdict. The Congress also took Nizamabad municipal corporation while the TRS won Karimnagar municipal corporation.

The TDP, in fact, shocked the YSRC on it home ground, Kadapa, by giving the latter a tough fight before conceding the corporation. The TDP won the Chittoor, Rajahmundry, Eluru, Vijayawada and Anantapur municipal corporations while the YSRC accounted for Nellore besides Kadapa. It was widely believed that the YSRC would hold ground in Rayalaseema, but the TDP put up an impressive performance in the region.

In all, 10 municipal corporations and 146 municipalities across Andhra Pradesh went to polls on March 30, but counting was taken up only on Monday following the two-phase general elections in the state on April 30 and May 7.

BJP national spokesman and in-charge of party affairs in AP Prakash Javadekar, describing the TDP’s impressive showing as the “curtain-raiser to May 16,” said: “It has been a happy start for the NDA with the TDP sweeping Seemandhra in the municipal elections. Today’s results show that the BJP-TDP alliance is set not only to sweep Seemandhra in the Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections but also put up an impressive show in Telangana.”

The TDP vice-president C M Ramesh said the local bodies’ results showed that the people chose development for their mandate and dumped corruption.

“It is people’s victory, which will also be reflected in the results on May 16,” he said, adding that skeptics who were claiming that the municipalities’ results would not have any bearing on the May 16 results would be proved wrong.

Even as news broke out about the TDP coming strong in Seemandhra, celebrations broke out all over the residuary state with TDP workers and activists bursting crackers and raising slogans in praise of party president N Chandrababu Naidu.

news@khaleejtimes.com