VISHAKHAPATNAM: The ruling YSRC registered a clean sweep of the MLC elections from the local bodies in Andhra Pradesh, winning all the four seats when the results were declared on Thursday. The counting of votes for the Graduates’ and Teachers’ seats was continuing tonight.
The Opposition TD made a vain bid to mark its presence by supporting Independent candidates, but the votes they polled were far below their expectations.
In West Godavari, YSRC candidates K. Srinivas and Vanka Ravindranath snatched both the vacant MLC local bodies seats. Some 1,088 electors out of a total 1,105 voters exercised their franchise. YSRC candidate Kavuru Srinivas got 481 first-priority votes and Vanka Ravindranath got 460 first-priority votes. Independent candidate Veeravalli Chandrasekhar got 120 votes.
Similarly, YSRC candidate Narthu Ramarao won the Srikakulam seat with a thumping majority. Ramarao got 632 votes, while the Independent candidate A. Ramakrishna got 108 votes. This constituency had 752 votes of which 12 votes were found invalid.
YSRC nominee Dr Madhusudan won the Kurnool local bodies MLC seat with a big margin. He got 988 votes out of the total 1,136 votes, while Independent candidate Mohan Reddy took 85 votes. Curiously, 53 votes were found invalid there. Another Independent candidate Venugopala Reddy ran down with 10 votes.
The polling for the total nine MLC seats was held on March 13. While the counting of four MLC seats from local body authorities was completed within an hour of commencement of the process, the counting for votes for two teachers’ constituencies and three graduate constituencies was under way.
According to sources, the counting of votes in Teachers’ constituencies and Graduates’ constituencies might continue for another 36 hours, running well into Friday. There was a stiff contest in all the five segments.
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