Political Diary

Nearly two-thirds of the voters in Krishna district will have to exercise their franchise in favour of a new face to represent them in the State Legislative Assembly in the elections that are going to be held on April 23.The total number of Assembly constituencies in the district has come down by one to 16 after delimitation. Malleswaram, Mudinenapalli, Kankipadu and Vuyyuru have been either reorganised into smaller constituencies or absorbed into neighbouring segments.
Familiar ones

Only the voters of Kaikaluru, Jaggayyapeta, Machilipatnam, Nuzvid, Gannavaram and Avanigadda are likely to see the sitting MLAs in the electoral race.Voters of the newly formed constituencies – Penamaluru, Pamarru, Vijayawada Central (Satyanarayanapuram) and Pedana – who do not have a sitting MLA will have to settle for a new face.Kankipadu, the second largest Assembly constituency in the State, has been cut into three pieces, conceding large portions of its area to Vijayawada East (Patamata).

Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru), who has been elected from Kankipadu constituency four times, will be familiar to the voters of Vijayawada East that is a piece of his old constituency.Mr. Rajasekhar is being seen as a sure candidate of the Congress for the new constituency.The voters of Nandigama may be disappointed as their sitting MLA Devineni Umamaheswara Rao will not be in the race from there because the constituency has been reserved for the scheduled castes.