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| ys jagan |
Y.S Vijayamma and Jagan Mohan Reddy won
In his first electoral success after quitting Congress, Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy today pulled off a thumping victory in the bypolls to the Kadapa Lok Sabha constituency.
Jagan won the election with a huge margin of over 5.45 lakh votes over his nearest Congress rival D L Ravindra Reddy, the state health minister. TDP's M V Mysoora Reddy was relegated to the third position.
Both the Congress and TDP candidates forfeited their security deposits.
Jaganmohan secured 692,079 votes against Congress' challenger D N Ravindra Reddy's 146,577 votes in Kadapa, surpassing the margin with which his late father Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had won in the same constituency in the 1990s.
Jagan also bettered his win margin of 1.78 lakh votes in his electoral debut in 2009.
Jagan's mother Vijayalakshmi, who sought re-election from Pulivendula assembly constituency, won by a margin of over 81,000 votes over her Congress rival Y S Vivekananda Reddy, who is her brother-in-law. Here too, the TDP nominee M Ravindranath Reddy stood third.
Jagan's resounding victory at the hustings emboldens his claim to his father late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's political legacy.
The bypolls were necessitated as Jagan and his mother quit the Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula assembly constituency after leaving the Congress following differences with the party's high command over his 'odarpu yatra' (tour for consoling the families of those who died of shock following YSR's death).
Jagan's victory came despite the massive efforts of Congress to win the seat by deploying several ministers for poll preparations. Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi too campaigned for the Congress.
Telugu Desam Chief N Chandrababu Naidu had campaigned for the victory of his party's nominees.
After winning the election, Jagan said the bypoll result is a lesson to Congress and TDP.
Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy said the Congress would introspect the reasons for the defeat and try to rebuild the party in Kadapa.
Naidu said, "Money and muscle power played a big role in the election campaign in Kadapa and democracy became a fool in the hands of these two parties (Congress and Jagan's YSR Congress)".
While the Congress and TDP highlighted the alleged corruption of Jagan, he projected the bypoll as a fight between the "arrogance of Delhi and the self-respect of Kadapa."
Kadapa has been a pocket-borough of the Reddy family.
Late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy won from the Kadapa Lok Sabha constituency or the Pulivendula assembly seat since the early 1980s. Rajasekhara Reddy won from Kadapa with a margin of over four lakh votes in 1990s which had been a record till his son surpassed it today.
The bypolls were held amid elaborate security arrangements made by the authorities ever since the Election Commission made the announcement.
Over Rs three crore of unaccounted money was seized by police in the run-up to the polling.
However, all the three major parties -- Congress, TDP and YSR Congress of Jagan -- made allegations of distributing money and liquor on a large scale to lure the voters.
Some voluntary organisations, who monitored the poll process in Kadapa, have claimed that hundreds of crores of rupees were distributed to lure the voters.
Ys jagan majority 545231 votes
Ys vijayamma majority 81373 votes
Y.S. Jagan majority in Kadapa Lok Sabha:
Assembly
Round
Jagan majority
Pulivendula
90,000
Jammalamadugu
69,147
Kamalapur
40,130
Mydukur
40,000
Proddatur
70,504
Kadapa
67,551
Badvel
60,940
Both DL and MYSURA lost deposites in kadapa.
PULIVENDULA VOTES
Y.S. Vijayamma
YSR Congress
1,14,039
74%
Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy
Congress
28,626
19%
M. Ravindranath Reddy
Telugu Desam
11,552
7%
