Bypolls: Shobha trumps Chiranjeevi

Jun 16, 2012 |

Hyderabad

Tags:

The losses at Tirupati and Allagadda will be tough to digest for both Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy and Mr Chiranjeevi. The latter had repeatedly said that Tirupati was a prestige issue for him and a win here would be a gift from him to the Congress president.

The Tirupati seat was also a prestige issue for the Chief Minister as it falls in his native Chittoor district. Both leaders had, separately and together, campaigned for the party candidate here and mobil-ised resources and influences as much as possible.

There were even rumours in Congress circles that Mr Chiranjeevi had been specifically asked by the party high command to ensure a victory in Tirupati so that his chances of elevation to the Union Cabinet were further improved.

In Allagadda, it was a personal battle between Mr Chiranjeevi and Ms Shobha Nagireddy.

“She betrayed me after being elected on a PR ticket. She needs to be taught a lesson,” he had said.
Ms Shobha Nagireddy, a close relative of Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, however, won with a record margin of over 35,000 in the constituency known of electing candidates with slender margins since 1952.

Mr Chiranjeevi will also take some solace with the Congress’ win in Narsapuram which was his native Assembly segment. In the 2009 elections, he had lost from the adjacent Palakol segment.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/161626" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-48b5ea1b7d57103325af11a5e8baa67e" value="form-48b5ea1b7d57103325af11a5e8baa67e" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85653796" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>