There have been reports in the recent past that YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is planning to reshuffle the constituencies of some of the sitting MLAs, in the wake of intelligence reports that they are facing strong anti-incumbency in their respective constituencies.
Particularly in Guntur district, Jagan is learnt to have got the survey reports that some of the sitting YSRC MLAs like Alla Ramakrishna Reddy in Mangalagiri, Ambati Rambabu in Sattenapalli and Vundavalli Sridevi in Tadikonda have little chances of retaining their respective seats.
In Tadikonda, Jagan decided to drop Sridevi and hence, appointed former minister and MLC Dokka Manikya Varaprasad as the party coordinator, indicating that he would contest the next assembly elections from there.
But he cannot afford to drop his hardcore loyalists like Alla Ramakrishna Reddy and Ambati. So, he is said to be contemplating reshuffling of their constituencies.
As part of the strategy, he wants to shift Alla to Sattenpalli and in his place, he may field prominent leader from weavers’ community Ganji Chiranjeevi, who recently defected from the TDP to YSRC, in Mangalagiri to checkmate Nara Lokesh, TDP general secretary and son of N Chandrababu Naidu.
There were reports that Ambati Rambabu, who is now irrigation minister in Jagan’s cabinet, might be shifted to Avanigadda in Krishna district, if Alla is moved to Sattenapalli.
However, sources said Ambati is not very much interested in moving to Avanigadda, where he will be a completely non-local, despite the fact that there is a sizeable number of Kapu votes there.
Instead, he is said to be interested in shifting to Guntur (West) constituency, which is presently represented by Maddali Giridhar, who defected from TDP to YSRC. If Jagan doesn’t want to give ticket to Maddali, he might prefer Ambati there.
Alternatively, Ambati may also be fielded from his original constituency Repalle, which he represented between 2004 and 2009 during the Congress regime led by late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.
Repalli is presently represented by TDP MLA Anagani Satyaprasad. There is not much competition for Ambati here, as YSRC candidate Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, who lost 2019 assembly elections, is now a Rajya Sabha MP.
So, Jagan may consider his request for Repalle, but he is not sure if Ambati will win the seat because Satyaprasad is strongly rooted there, sources said.