With the subdued campaign coming to an end on Friday evening for Sunday’s municipal election, vexatious civic problems stalk the poll scene at these two towns.
Nowhere it’s more evident than at Narsipatnam, where access is made with wooden planks across dug-up drains, with stench sparing not even those having a meal at the popular Udipi restaurant.
Going to the polls for the first time after becoming municipalities, they face water shortage, garbage disposal problems, and lack of proper drainage.
Narsipatnam has no dump yard, as a sub-station is coming up at the site meant for it. A new site has to be finalised. The market in the centre of the town cries for attention.
The town with 44,097 voters and 27 wards gets water supply twice in a week from a water scheme from Varaha river launched in 1989.
“We have to go in for a new scheme, tapping water from the Yeleru canal,” says former Minister Ch. Ayyanna Patrudu (TDP), whose sister-in-law Ch. Anita is in the fray for the chairperson post.
He is confident that the TDP will win 24 of the 25 wards it is contesting. The town is a TDP stronghold, as it has been retaining the panchayat all through.
The YSRCP is contesting all the 27 wards. But, with MLA Mutyala Papa and MLC Suryanaryana Raju joining the party recently, they have to decide among the four aspirants for chairpersonship. Congress is contesting a mere two wards.
At Elamanchili too, water problem occurs whenever the supply lines that run through field are disrupted.
“Then most of the people depend upon the open well at the MRO office,” says a resident Brahmaji. A new project bringing water from the Varaha is the only way out.
Residents say that there are hardly any drains worth the name that have to be linked to Penjuruvu via Yanadri Canal, for which a project has to be taken up.
Visakha Dairy Chairman Adari Tulasi Rao’s daughter Rama Kumari, a two-time sarpanch, who is the TDP nominee, has been elected unopposed from her ward.
Mr. Rao is leading the campaign. Her relative and former mandal president Adari Lakshmidevi is the YSRCP nominee.
After party president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s tour in both the towns, the party cadres are upbeat. The 32,043 voters will elect members to 23 wards, where both the main parties have put up candidates. Congress has no contestant.
