Jagan knocks on Vizia royals’, TDP’s fortress

Vizianagaram, 52 km northeast of Vishakhapatnam, rings a bell for cricket diehards, who heard radio commentary of ‘Sir Vizzy’, of the Vizianagaram royal family, in the 1950s. For those who enjoy history, it’s the base of Vizianagarm and Bobbili kings, whose wars were often proxies for battles between the British and the French in the 1750s. So much so that this was a plot for one of NTR’s hit films , Bobbili Yudhham.

It’s been a long time since the privy purses were scrapped. The Vizianagaram Fort, now housing the dilapidated MANAS, or the Maharaja Alakh Narayan Society of Arts and Science, is a pale shadow of its former self. Outside it runs a busy bazaar street. The remains of the Bobbili Fort don’t even exist anymore.

However, any belief that times have changed is misplaced. The kings cast a long shadow on these elections. The Vizianagaram royals have been MPs three times from here, apart from Sir Vizzy, who was in Parliament for two years. This time, the descendant of a chief minister of the Madras Presidency has been fielded by the YSR Congress Party.

The YSRCP’s Ravu Venkata Swetha Chalapathi Kumar Krishna Ranga Rao alias Baby Nayana is giving a tough fight to sitting Congress MP Botsa Jhansi Lakshmi and long-term TDP MLA Ashok Gajapati Raju (of the Vizianagaram royal family).

And while Lakshmi is the wife of former party state president Botsa Satyanarayna, from whose immediate family three other members are in the fray, the fight in Vizianagaram is essentially between the YSRCP and the TDP. The YSRCP has been campaigning in the TDP bastion steadily for more than two years now, capped by Jagan’s yatra here a couple of weeks ago.

Says Rayiti Ramu, 30, who sells cut fruit just outside the Vizianagaram fort; “Kings contest from here and win. I get the feeling from TV that Jaganmohan Reddy has influence, but the people I know appear to go to all campaigns.”

The TDP has been trying to recover ground by pushing itself as the natural choice to “stabilise” the state that has been in an administrative and political limbo for four and a half years. It is also banking on the popularity and royal lineage of its candidate. However, Jagan, despite the corruption charges against him, remains top of the mind.

In village Jonnada, farmers and Kapu workers, seen usually as TDP loyalists, discuss the virtues of a “steady hand like the TDP’s” at a time of uncertainty in Seemandhra after the bifurcation. But the only thing that animates the group is a discussion on the schemes announced by the YSR government in 2004.

While he admits that “things are much better” even for daily wage workers like him, Jogi Naidu, 55, says “Only schemes such as YSR’s reach the people.”

First-time voters, like students of Lendi Engineering College in the area, say they “usually discuss cricket”, but at other times, the talk is about the schemes. Manoj Kumar, 21, a BTech (Electrical) student, mentions the fees reimbursement scheme “which helps us a lot”, continued…

Jagan knocks on Vizia royals’, TDP’s fortress