NELLORE: The YSR Congress, Telugu Desam and teachers’ unions affiliated to the left parties are gearing up for elections for the MLC seats from the teacher and graduate constituencies of East Rayalaseema in erstwhile Chittoor, Nellore and Prakasam districts.
Both the teachers and graduates seats are usually bagged by teachers’ associations, mainly the UTF (United Teachers Front) affiliated to the CPIM because of their strong ground-level network. UTF nominees bagged both the teachers and graduates seats in the 2017 elections.
However, the YSR Congress is putting in a lot of effort to breach the bastion of the UTF this time and has activated its cadres to enroll pro-YSRC graduates and teachers in large numbers.
Other parties are also working hard for enrolment of voters from on October 1. The deadline for the enrolment is November 7. As many as 47,028 graduates and 791 teachers filed their applications both online and off-line for enrollment as on October 17.
In the previous elections held in March 2017, the graduate voters numbered 2,18,356 and teacher voters 20,121. UTF nominees Vitapur Balasubhramanyam and K Srinivasulu Reddy bagged the teachers and graduates seats then.
This time, the YSR Congress has fielded Perneti Syamprasad Reddy for the graduates’ constituency and Parvatareddy Chandrasekhar Reddy for the teachers’ constituency.
Syam Prasad Reddy is an active leader in YSR Congress and his wife Sushmitha Reddy is chairperson of the AP Seeds Corporation. Chandrasekhar Reddy is correspondent of Krishna Chaitanya Educational Institutes and chairman of Indian Red Cross Society, Nellore unit.
As for UTF, teachers union leader P Babu Reddy of Nellore will be contesting for the Teachers’ constituency seat while M Venkateswar Reddy of Ongole is fielded for the graduates’ constituency.
The Telugu Desam is supporting teacher LC Ramana Reddy of the AP Teachers Federation (APTF) for the teachers’ constituency and former ZPTC member K Srikanth Reddy for the graduates’ constituency.
A teacher in Nellore rural segment said most of the teachers are unhappy with the previous MLCs representing the teachers’ segment from UTF as they failed to resolve the issues affecting teachers. They are also unhappy with the government because of the halt to teacher recruitments and this has increased the number of single teacher schools.
Asked about the chances of the YSR Congress, a teacher said the teacher community may not back the ruling party nominees as teachers are being held responsible for a lot of non-teaching works, like the implementation of the Nadu-Nedu programme, the Midday Meal etc.
He drew attention to the various apps given to teachers to upload attendance and photos of toilets and so on every day.
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