A lot is at stake for both TDP and YSRCP in Mangalagiri 

Mangalagiri Assembly constituency in Andhra Pradesh faces a high-stakes battle between TDP and YSRCP candidates.

Few Assembly constituency face-offs in Andhra Pradesh are going to attract as much public interest and media scrutiny this election season as the one that is brewing in Mangalagiri.

While Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national general secretary Nara Lokesh will be hoping to gain entry to the State Legislative Assembly by winning his first direct election, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) will assuredly do everything it can to ensure that the TDP scion tastes humble pie for the second time in a row, after losing narrowly in 2019 by a margin of around 5,000 votes.

While Mr. Lokesh was a Minister from 2014 to 2019 when the TDP was in power, he was often derided by the YSRCP for gaining a backdoor entry into his father N. Chandrababu Naidu’s Cabinet by becoming a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC). A victory in the Assembly elections would significantly boost Mr. Lokesh’s credentials as a potential future leader of the TDP, a fact that the party is keenly aware of.

On the other hand, the importance that the ruling YSRCP has attached to this constituency can be gauged by the fact that it has decided not to renominate sitting MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy — who had achieved two consecutive wins for the party in 2014 and 2019 — and instead field a newcomer named Murugudu Lavanya.

Ms. Lavanya’s family has had a long connection to Mangalagiri constituency. Her mother, Kandru Kamala, was elected as MLA from Mangalagiri in 2009 on a Congress ticket. Her father-in-law M. Hanumantha Rao served as MLA of Mangalagiri from 1999 to 2004 on a Congress ticket, and is now a YSRCP leader, serving as an MLC.

A shot in the arm for the YSRCP is the support that it has received from prominent local leader Ganji Chiranjeevi, who lost by a wafer-thin margin of 12 votes in the 2014 Assembly elections. Mr. Chiranjeevi, who was forced to make way for Mr. Lokesh in 2019, quit the TDP in 2022 to join the YSRCP.

Mangalagiri is located at the crossroads of the Amaravati capital city region, which has been the subject of much controversy in the past five years.