Hyderabad: For the ruling TDP, trounced and humiliated in none apart from their social gathering supremo Chandrababu Naidu’s bastion Kuppam within the native physique polls 4 years again, the chance to pay again got here a 12 months upfront.

Within the by-polls held to the Pulivendula Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) seat Tuesday, necessitated by the sitting YSRCP member Maheshwara Reddy’s loss of life, TDP candidate Latha Reddy received by a majority of ove 6,000 votes, thus denying Maheshwara’s son and YSRCP candidate Hemanth even his deposit quantity.

Earlier, his father YS Rajasekhara Reddy was the MLA and the undisputed chief of the sector in Rayalaseema.

The opposition social gathering misplaced the neighbouring Ontimitta ZPTC seat too, which can also be within the YSR household turf Kadapa.

Polls at Ontimitta, well-known for its sixteenth century Lord Kodandarama temple, had been held because the sitting YSRCP member and Kadapa ZPTC chairman Amarnath Reddy was elected to the meeting from Rajampeta in 2024.

The lack of the 2 native seats, comes after the large setback Jagan confronted in his stronghold Kadapa within the 2024 polls when the YSRCP meeting tally fell from 10 out of 10 constituencies within the erstwhile mixed district to 3. The social gathering’s complete depend within the meeting at current is an abysmal 11 out of 175.

Nonetheless, YSRCP will proceed to dominate the Kadapa ZPTC as even after shedding the 2 bypolls, Jagan’s social gathering has 48 of the 50 seats.

However, the TDP is celebrating the Pulivendula victory and Jagan’s chagrin, with social gathering scion Nara Lokesh terming the result as #FreedomAfter30Years.

The TDP claims that since 1995, elections had been at all times unanimous due to the affect of the YSR household, in favour of Congress throughout YSR’s time and the YSRCP in a while.

“For the primary time in 30 years, Pulivendula has taken half in a really democratic election course of and the individuals have had the possibility to forged their vote freely. Congratulations to Latha Reddy and Krishna Reddy on their well-earned victory. My heartfelt due to the individuals for turning out in giant numbers to assist our candidates,” Lokesh mentioned in a social media publish 14 August because the outcomes had been declared.

#FreedomAfter30Years
The individuals of #Pulivendula and #Ontimitta have chosen progress over backwardness! For the primary time in 30 years, Pulivendula has taken half in a really democratic election course of and the individuals have had the possibility to forged their vote freely. Congratulations… pic.twitter.com/hasSVk4cBd

— Lokesh Nara (@naralokesh) August 14, 2025

A day earlier than the outcomes, on 13 August, Jagan demanded contemporary elections underneath the supervision of central forces and in a good method, as he outlined polls held to Pulivendula and Ontimitta ZPTCs on 12 August as “only a mockery of democracy”.

Chatting with reporters at Tadepalli, the YSRCP chief described the election as essentially the most atrocious and undemocratic, and that “Chandrababu Naidu has set in a really dangerous precedent, harmful to democracy”.

“The spirit of elections is misplaced by such nefarious deeds as they had been held underneath the duvet and defend of the police, who acted as TDP brokers, with outsiders taking on the cubicles and resorting to large-scale rigging. For about 10,600 votes in 15 cubicles, a posse of 700 policemen was deployed not to make sure peaceable elections however to terrorise voters, and the jumbling technique employed by shifting polling cubicles was solely to threaten voters halfway or ship them again,” accused Jagan, including that even YSRCP polling brokers weren’t allowed into cubicles and “their authorisation varieties had been snatched and torn”.

Referring to the Congress and Rahul Gandhi’s marketing campaign in opposition to SIR in Bihar, Jagan quipped: “What occurred at Pulivendula and Ontimitta is the true vote chori’”

Throwback to Kuppam: ‘Homicide of democracy’

YSRCP’s fees of “large-scale bogus voting, homicide of democracy” in Pulivendula are the identical as these levelled by TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu 4 years in the past when he was mortified by the then ruling social gathering breaching his bastion Kuppam.

The ruling YSRCP had swept the 2021 ZPTC and MPTC polls, even trouncing the TDP in Kuppam, the meeting constituency represented by Naidu since 1989.

Within the polls held to a number of city native our bodies that 12 months in November, the TDP was defeated in Kuppam municipality too, with YSRCP successful 19 out of 25 wards there.

Naidu had then accused the ruling YSRCP of deploying bogus voters to subvert individuals’s mandate in Kuppam and different civic our bodies.

The then opposition chief even charged Chief Minister Reddy and his partymen of “committing midnight homicide of democracy by getting the TDP polling brokers and leaders arrested hours earlier than the election by the police, who’ve turn out to be unprincipled underneath the current regime”.

On Thursday, former minister Perni Venkateswara Rao alleged that non-local TDP staff had been allowed to vote even within the presence of district collector Cherukuri Sridhar, “which defines the conduct of by-polls and the sanctity of democracy”.

“Police had been used as a defend to safeguard TDP pursuits, and there was no reply to Jagan Mohan Reddy’s query on how voters from different areas had been allowed to vote within the by-elections.”

Calling the 2 ZPTC by-polls a darkish day for democracy, YSRCP had boycotted the re-polling in two polling centres held on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Andhra Pradesh Excessive Courtroom dismissed the YSRCP petition searching for a repoll in 15 polling centres underneath Pulivendula ZPTC and in 30 underneath Ontimitta, stating that it can’t intervene within the dominion of the state election fee.

Chatting with ThePrint, Pulivendula candidate Hemanth questioned the legitimacy of victories claimed by the TDP, claiming that even he “couldn’t forged his personal vote because the police behaved like non-public armies, moreover the TDP gangs, and restricted him to his home”.

YSRCP emphasised that regardless of submitting 35 formal complaints, making 17 private visits, and sending 18 emails relating to electoral violations, the State Election Fee had did not act.

(Edited by Viny Mishra)

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