The Kuppam assembly constituency was once a stronghold for TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu. However, this now cannot be said about his hold on Kuppam. The situation of TDP seems to have especially turned worse after the party lost terribly at the MPTC and ZPTC elections.
The YSRCP has turned the tables for TDP, and put them in a tough position, by winning all four ZPTCs and 79 out of 65 MPTC seats in the constituency. In the gram panchayat elections too, the TDP could win only 16 out of 90 plus gram panchayats in the Kuppam assembly constituency. If this situation continues in Kuppam, then the chances of Naidu winning in the next elections is highly difficult. Given thay Naidu has contested from Kuppam for a long time, it’s not even that he can change his constituency, which would mean that Naidu needs to do a lot of damage control.
In an attempt to do so, Naidu is about to tour Kuppam from October 11th, for 4 days. He is expected to fly to Bengaluru and reach Kuppam by road from there. He is scheduled to tour Kuppam municipality areas on October 11 and 12, Santipuram and Ramakuppam mandals on October 13 and Gudupalli and again Santipuram on October 14. Previously too, Naidu was criticised for taking Kuppam for granted, after which he toured the constituency for 3 days, which still didn’t manage to yield any results. Naidu’s personal secretary Manohar, constituency in-charge P S Muniratnam and local MLC G Srinivasulu were then given the responsibility of Kuppam, but failed at it miserably. While they gave in their resignations for failing at their job, Naidu didn’t accept them. It is now to be seen if Naidu can make things right this time around.