The Vijayawada (Central) Assembly constituency is set to witness an intense electoral battle with candidates of both the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaving no stone unturned to emerge victorious. The constituency is one of the three key Assembly segments falling under Vijayawada Lok Sabha constituency, which is close to the Amaravati capital region.
YSRCP candidate Velampalli Srinivas relocated to Central after his request to contest from Vijayawada (West) was turned down by the party. TDP candidate Bonda Umamaheswara Rao, who lost the election by a slender margin of 25 votes in the 2019 elections, is testing his luck again. The YSRCP opted to replace sitting MLA Malladi Vishnu with Mr. Srinivas on the basis of survey reports which reportedly indicated that voters were not too happy with Mr. Vishnu.
In the 2019 election, Mr. Umamaheswara Rao lost narrowly in a triangular contest. The Jana Sena Party (JSP) had supported CPI(M) candidate Ch. Babu Rao in 2019. Mr. Vishnu secured 70,721 votes while Mr. Umamaheswara Rao secured 70,696 votes. The CPI(M) leader was a distant third, polling 29,333 votes (16% of the vote share).
