Massive Cross-Voting in Tirupati Shocks All

The YSRCP received a huge jolt from the electoral of Andhra Pradesh as it was relegated to just 11 assembly seats from the previous tally of 151 seats. What is more embarrassing is that the Jagan Mohan Reddy’s lost the ‘Opposition’ status as well because it failed to secure even 10% of the total seats.

The only consolation for the YSRCP is that it managed to clinch 4 MP seats out of 25 parliament segments. It is a big surprise to everyone because for a party which was decimated in 164 assembly segments someone managed to bag 4 Loksabha seats. In 2019, TDP won only 3 MPs despite winning 23 MLAs.

If we dig deeper and analyse the results, it can be clearly perceived that massive cross voting happened in Tirupati. Going into the official numbers, Tirupati Loksabha segment has seven assembly seats and the NDA alliance has swept all these constituencies including the Tirupati MLA segment with a thumping 62,000 majority. Even more surprising is that the combined majority amassed from of all assembly seats is close to 2 lakhs.

Still, the YSRCP scraped through victory against the BJP candidate with a slender margin of 14,000 votes and secured the Tirupati Loksabha seat. Maddila Gurumurthy of YSRCP won against NDA’s Varaprasad Rao (BJP).

Political analysts opined that the NDA would have won this seat had it fielded TDP or Janasena candidate instead of alloting it to BJP. This is an unprecedented outcome where the party which won all the assembly segments with outright mandate has lost the parliament segment.