Kodela faces defeat in Guntur

VIJAYAWADA: Assembly Speaker and five-time TDP MLA Kodela Siva Prasada Rao, up for reelection from Sattenapalli constituency in Guntur district, tasted bitter defeat at the hands of his opponent Ambati Rambabu of YSRC.

This is the second time Kodela and Ambati locked horns in a fierce battle after 2014, when the former scraped through by a margin of just 924 votes.

However, this time around, Ambati, the YSRC’s official spokesperson, registered a comfortable win with over 10,000 votes.

One of the major reasons for Kodela’s drubbing is attributed to the strong anti-incumbency against him and his family.

Even though Kodela banked on the development undertaken by him in the constituency in the last five years, repeated allegations by the YSRC that his family, particularly his son Kodela Sivarama Krishna, was involved in rampant corruption and behaved autocratically seem to have dented his prospects.

There were also allegations that the senior TDP leader’s family members interfered in the matters of administration.

The constituency has a total electorate of 2,30,775 voters, including 1,17,166 females and 1,13,592 males. In the elections held on April 11, 87.7 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in Sattenappalli.