Month's time left, AP parties hurry to be poll ready

With the Election Commission (EC) of India declaring elections for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on April 11, almost all political parties in Andhra Pradesh said that the time is too short.

With only a month left for the D-day, parties are re-drawing plans to truncate the process of candidate selection and get ready for a whirlwind campaign.

Elections for Andhra Pradesh Assembly (175 seats) will be conducted concurrently with the Lok Sabha (25 seats) elections on April 11 in a single phase of the election's phase one.

The Lok Sabha elections in Telangana (17 seats), which had gone for early-Assembly elections in December last, will also be held on April 11.

Both states will have to wait until May 23 to know the results.

“Not only we have to wait for 43 days for the results, as we go to polls in phase one, we also have to protect the EVMs from the goons of YSRCP,” a TDP ticket aspirant from Vijayawada said.

The ruling TDP’s spokesperson Khambampati Rammohan Rao said that the TDP is ready for the elections.

“The CM has already shortlisted 150 candidates and all the 25 Parliament candidates have been finalized. The TDP is happy because Telangana and AP are going for polls on the same day, cutting chances of bogus voters voting in both the states,” he said.

However, the main Opposition YSRCP feels that they are ready for the elections in short notice as their leader has spent 360 days with the public through his Padayatra and people have already decided to vote for their party.

YSRCP strategy committee has called for an emergency meeting at Jaganmohan Reddy's Lotus Pond residence.

Party sources said that names of at least 130 candidates for Assembly elections and 15 candidates for Lok Sabha elections have been finalized.

They also said that, looking at the shortage of time, Jaganmohan Reddy might have to hop around in a chopper and also press his family members to campaign.

However, the EC seems to have not taken into cognizance the YSRCP’s compliant about deletion of votes and bogus votes and has decided to look further into the issue through an observer but not to put a hold on the elections.