Nandyal Lok Sabha constituency: Memories of VVIP glory gathers dust

Nandyal is one of 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in Andhra Pradesh and it is in the by-election here in 1991 that the late PV Narasimha Rao contested and won. The first phase of voting in 25 constituencies of Andhra Pradesh ended on April 11 with over 80 per cent of the electorate exercising their franchise till midnight. The fate of 20 candidates contesting from Nandyal will be decided on May 23 when counting of votes takes place and the result is declared.

Rao's win in the by-election of 1991 was by a massive margin of over five lakh votes - an achievement recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.

Having been a VVIP constituency at one point in time hardly ever helped as it remains a largely agriculture-based economy. The threat posed by Maoists too has been omnipresent - further hindering development plans.

In recent times, TDP has managed to make strong political forays into this constituency while YSRCP's SPY Reddy secured a rather easy win in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. He garnered 51.65 per cent of total votes to defeat TDP's Nasyam Mohammed Farook. Congress, which saw far better days in years gone by, managed to get just 16,378 or 1.36 per cent of the votes.

The voter turnout here in the 2014 Lok Sabha election was 76.71 per cent, just a little over the state average of 74.47 per cent.