As expected, the ruling YSR Congress party in Andhra Pradesh has won all the four Rajya Sabha seats from the state, elections for which were held on Friday.
The four YSRC candidates – A Ayodhya Rami Reddy, Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose, Mopidevi Venkata Ramana and Parimal Nathwani – emerged victorious by securing the number of votes required for their election without any hassle.
In fact, they would have got elected unanimously because the YSRC had enough strength in the assembly – 151 out of 175 MLAs, but the election was necessitated with the Telugu Desam Party fielding its candidate – Varla Ramaiah – though it has only 23 MLAs in the assembly technically, including three rebels.
The TDP was aware that it won’t win the Rajya Sabha seat at all, but party president N Chandrababu Naidu said he has fielded the candidate only for the sake of contest in a democratic set up.
However, his intention was to expose the three rebel MLAs – Gannavaram MLA Vallabhaneni Vamsi, Chirala MLA Karanam Balarama Krishna Murthy and Guntur West MLA Maddali Giridhar; and prevent them from voting in favour of the YSRC by issuing a party whip to all the party MLAs.
But it turned out to be a big humiliation for Naidu after the polling in the evening. Out of 23 votes the party has, Varla Ramaiah got only 17 votes, much to the shock of Naidu. As many as four votes of the TDP were declared invalid.
The three rebel MLAs did not vote for the YSRC to avoid being disqualified, but they also did not vote for the TDP; instead, they saw to it that their votes turn invalid.
What is more astonishing is that the vote of another TDP MLA Adireddy Bhavani from Rajahmundry has also become invalid, as she reportedly ticked on the first preferential vote, instead of marking “1”.
Though Bhavani later gave an explanation to the party that she had done due to lack of proper understanding, there is a suspicion that she might also be looking towards the YSRC.
The remaining two votes which the TDP could not poll were that of K Atchen Naidu who could not cast his vote because he is judicial custody and another one was that of Anagani Satyaprasad, who sought an excuse from the party stating that he was under self-quarantine. This gentleman too is most likely to jump the fence into the YSRC.