Andhra Pradesh | Global CM rules local slugfest

Local body polls usually go in favour of the party that wields the sceptre, so there isn’t a lot of money to be made for psephologists decoding bar charts or heat maps. In Andhra Pradesh, convention prevailed: the Telugu Desam Party-led NDA is going to celebrate the completion of two and a half years in office with results that could be spun as an overwhelming approval of Chandrababu Naidu’s rule. The ruling side spoke of it as a ‘mid-term sweep’ and a foretaste of things at the next assembly election. Critics, as they are wont to do, begged to differ.

Even within the expected patterns, two results offered a gentle snapshot of the heightened ‘vendetta-style’ political competition between the TDP and its arch-rival, former CM Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP). In the 2021 edition of the local polls, when Jagan was CM, the YSRCP had gone all out to breach Naidu’s native Kuppam in Chittoor district. It ended up winning 19 of 25 municipal wards in a legislative fortress where the TDP supremo had been undefeated since 1989.

In 2026, Naidu completed a double reversal. Not only did the TDP get back Kuppam, it made a point of seizing the YSR family’s ancestral borough of Pulivendula in Kadapa. Hitherto out of bounds for the TDP, now its alliance pocketed even its municipal chairperson’s post. Together, the TDP, Jana Sena and BJP have put up quite a sweep, winning 94 out of the 100 municipal corporations and municipalities in the state, and 575 out of 659 zilla parishad territorial constituencies (ZPTCs), including several seats that were bagged ‘unanimously’—that is, without any poll having to be conducted. That no valid nominations were filed in these places was a reflection of the extent of loss of morale in the YSRCP, as also mass defections from its cadre and mid-level leadership. Naidu called it “people’s support for good governance, social justice, new leadership and democratic values”.

SHEER DOMINANCE

The NDA recorded a strike rate of 94 per cent in urban polls and 87.2 per cent in the ZPTC polls. Sheer dominance, whether you read it as incumbent advantage or not. Since no assembly or Lok Sabha bypolls were necessitated in Andhra since June 2024, these polls also offer the first gauge of Naidu’s governance and political authority since his return that year. His party alone won 70 out of 100 mayor/municipality chairperson posts and 477 of 659 ZPTCs, including 15 and 71 unanimous seats respectively.

The latter phenomenon was the point on which the YSRCP chief responded, saying signs of force, coercion and manipulation were visible in “several districts” and calling Naidu “the rigging master”. “Democracy is being undermined at every turn,” Jagan said in a post on X. “Hey Ram, Save Andhra!” went another.

An overjoyed Naidu, instead, analysed the data as rising endorsement levels. The NDA secured 58.9 per cent of the votes in urban and parishad elections put together; the alliance’s vote share in the May 2024 assembly poll was 55.3 per cent.

Pundits are wary of overreading it. “Five years back, YSRCP also trounced TDP the same way, but failed miserably in 2024,” says D.A.R. Subramanyam, chairman of the Guntur-based Navyandhra Intellectual Forum. “There is no connection between local and assembly polls. The latter’s outcome depends on how Naidu delivers on his promises: Amaravati, Polavaram, industrial development, jobs, welfare schemes.”