Cong retains Visakha-1 Assembly seat in AP

Visakhapatnam, Apr 27 (UNI) The ruling Congress today retained the Visakhapatnam-1 Assembly seat, defeating arch rivals Telugu Desam Party (TDP) with a comfortable majority in the re-poll on April 24.

Congress candidate D Srinivas, son of Mr Satyanarayana defeated nearest rival S A Rahaman of the TDP by a margin of 14,150 votes.

The other 12 candidates - BJP, BSP and NCP and nine independents - lost their deposits.

The by-election, necessitated by the death of sitting Congress MLA D Satyanarayana, was riddled with controversy with the polling being postponed twice and countermanded once. The Election Commission had countermanded polling held on February 19 in the entire constituency, following complaints of large scale malpractices like distribution of money and liquor to voters by political parties.

The April 24 election recorded one of the lowest polling percentages in the history of Andhra Pradesh with just 44.51 per cent of 1,32,497 voters casting their votes. Mr Srinivas got the maximum of 34,866 votes while the TDP candidate finished with 20,716. BJP's Kasivishwanadha Raju finished a poor third with just 1499 votes.

Expressing happiness, Mr Srinivas said this was the decree given by the people for the policies and developmental work taken up by the Congress during its two year regime. ''This win is the gift given by the people of Visakhapatnam to Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy for his commitment to the people of the state and their uplift,'' he said.

Mr Srinivas assured he would give priority to providing drinking water, improving sanitation and other developmental works.

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