| Telugu Desam Party yet to announce candidate for the constituency |
Ganta Srinivasa Rao won the Anakapalle Lok Sabha seat in 1999
Kapus have a sizeable population in the constituency
VISAKHAPATNAM: Allu Aravind, film producer and brother-in-law of actor Chiranjeevi who founded Praja Rajyam Party, will be a strong contender for the Anakapalle Lok Sabha seat.
Though there were reports that Mr. Aravind would contest from Anakapalle, it was thought by many that he might not since he was the key person managing the organisational work of the newly-formed party. However, the convenor of the party for both Visakhapatnam urban and rural areas, Ganta Srinivasa Rao, is said to have prevailed on him to contest, a move which comes as a bolt from the blue to the Congress party.
Mr. Srinivasa Rao himself won the Anakapalle Lok Sabha seat in 1999 when he was with the Telugu Desam Party. However, during the 2004 elections, he opted for Assembly and won from Chodavaram which is part of the Anakapalle Parliamentary constituency, with the hope that he could join the Cabinet of N. Chandrababu Naidu if TDP was re-elected to power. However, TDP was unseated in the elections.
In the run-up to the elections, he had challenged Minister Konathala Ramakrishna at a public meeting and therefore decided to face the latter from the Anakapalle Assembly constituency this time, instead of Chodavaram.
A seasoned politician he is, Mr. Srinivasa Rao is pinning hopes on the caste factor which is likely to weigh in PRP favour. Though Anakapalle Assembly seat was in the hands of the Gavara community for long with either TDP’s Dadi Veerabhadra Rao and Mr. Ramakrishna representing it during the last two decades, Kapus have a sizeable population both in the Assembly and Lok Sabha area which was why both TDP and Congress (Gandham Nandagopal) fielded candidates from that community for the Lok Sabha seat in 2004.
The Telugu Desam is yet to announce its candidate but in all likelihood, the sitting MP Pappala Chalapathi Rao might be fielded again.
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