Party puts their every effort to capture the Etcherla Assembly segment

The Telugu Desam (TDP) has its stronghold in the Etcherla Assembly segment, where it has remained since its founding. Despite being located in the Srikakulam district, the Etcherla Assembly seat is part of the Vizianagaram Parliament sector. In the 2004 elections, Kondru Murali Mohan Rao defeated Kavali Prathibha Bharathi, who had been the speaker of the legislative assembly, minister, and winner of the Etcherla seat five times, by a margin of 5,689 votes.

Even though Turpu Kapu makes up the bulk of the population in the Etcherla Assembly segment, it has always been designated for Scheduled Caste (SC). Meesala Neelakantam, a member of the Congress party, was victorious in the 2009 elections with the backing of the SC community.

Afterwards, in the 2014 elections, Kimidi Kala Venkata Rao of the TDP won. Nonetheless, Gorle Kiran Kumar, who contested unsuccessfully in the 2014 election, defeated Kimidi Kala Venkata Rao in the 2019 elections with a majority of 18,711 votes because to the persistent efforts of YSRC.

The governing YSRC has enlisted the current MLA in anticipation of the same outcomes in the next elections. This time, however, the TDP-BJP-JSP combination has put forward N Easwar Rao, a Kamma community native who has been nominated by the BJP high command.

In the Vizianagaram district, the TDP leadership moved Kimidi Kala Venkata Rao to the Cheepurupalli Assembly sector and nominated Kalisetti Appalanaidu, who is also from the Etcherla Assembly section, for the Vizianagaram Lok Sabha seat.

The demographic makeup of the Etcherla constituency, which includes the mandals of Etcherla, Laveru, Ranastalam, and G Sigadam, is varied. Along with IIT, Dr. BR Ambedkar University, and a number of other private and public universities, it developed into a center for education. Laveru and G Sigadam mandals are regarded as agriculturally wealthy areas, while Ranastalam mandal is thought to be a pharmaceutical center with various enterprises situated in the Pydibhimavaram Industrial SEZ.

Turpu Kapu is the most popular community in the Assembly sector with over 40,000 votes, followed by Telaga, Kalinga, Velama, SC, and the communities of fishermen who make up a significant portion of the votes.

Gorle Kiran Kumar, the current YSRC MLA, is optimistic he would win because of the government-implemented social programs. He claimed to have visited 93,000 homes during the Gadapa-Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam in addition to giving the constituents `3.97 crore in financial support via the CMRF. However, a number of promises, such as building a degree college at Ranastalam, renovating the canals of the Madduvalasa reservoir and the Narayanapuram projects, and building a small reservoir at Budumuru Pedda Cheruvu, went unfulfilled.

Before the 2019 elections, the YSRC administration had a political program that included building a nuclear power plant at Kovvada, but they chose to remain silent about it. Due to accusations of corruption including sand mining and land grabbing, Gorle Kiran Kumar has been severely criticized by lower-level leaders for failing to provide support to his cadres.

Thus, with over 5,000 party members, the major leaders of the four mandals organized a massive protest against their incumbent MLA, chanting “MLA Vaddu-Jagan Muddu.”

The second-rung politicians have been blaming MLA Kiran Kumar for the assault on Etcherla resident Jarugulla Sankara Rao and the suicide of Sakshi mofussil reporter Girija Damodararao, a leader of the YSRC. A few of them have been getting ready to nominate themselves as an independent candidate in an attempt to unseat MLA Kiran Kumar.

N Easwara Rao, the NDA alliance candidate, feels optimistic about winning because of his fifteen years of charitable work and humanitarian activities in the area. His good relationships with TDP and Jana Sena leaders gave him confidence that he would win.

When the saffron party candidate takes office in the Etcherla Assembly seat, his goals are to build infrastructure, create jobs, and provide tail-end farmers timely irrigation water.

A farmer from Etcherla Mandal named Appalanaidu told TNIE that there hasn’t been any progress in the constituency for the last five years. Irrigated water was not supplied by the government to the farmers who were near the end of the Madduvalasa and Narayanapuram projects. The youngsters without jobs and farmers received zero attention from them. The leaders of the YSRC have only addressed illicit sand mining and land grabs.