The ruling Telugu Desam Party is learnt to have gone all out to grab the MLC seat under local bodies’ quota in Kadapa district by spending money lavishly on luring the opposition party voters through cross voting. The polling took place on Friday.
According to sources, TDP president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has entrusted the task of winning the MLC seat in Kadapa to three leaders – Jammalamadugu MLA Adinarayana Reddy, MLC candidate B Tech Ravi and Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh.
They had done everything to engineer split in the MPTCs, ZPTCs and municipal councillors in Kadapa, most of whom belong to the YSR Congress party so that there would be cross voting in favour of the TDP candidate.
Sources said the TDP leadership had even arranged a private chartered flight to take the voters from one place to another place on a jolly ride so as to keep the flock together. This is besides payment of Rs 25 lakh to each of the voter.
“In all, over Rs 70-80 crore was spent on the Kadapa MLC election,” they said.
In spite of all the efforts, YSR Congress party candidate Y S Vivekananda Reddy is most likely to win the election albeit with a narrow margin, say the sources.
