SRIKAKULAM: Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, the sitting MP from Srikakulam Lok Sabha seat, has made a mark for himself by taking up the issue of Special Category Status (SCS) on the floor of Parliament. He is now facing a tough competition from his rival YSRC contestant Duvvada Sreenivas in the April 11 elections as the opponent is vociferously raising local issues which were unresolved in the past five years.
His entry into politics itself was an accidental one. After the death of his father four-time MP Kinjarapu Yerram Naidu in an accident in November 2012, Ram Mohan Naidu was asked by the TDP leadership to contest from his father’s seat. Although he was new to politics, sympathy factor and the TDP wave worked in Ram Mohan’s favour in the 2014 election.
Just before the 2014 elections, Ram Mohan had taken out a cycle rally covering all the Assembly segments in the Srikakulam Lok Sabha constituency. The TDP high command believes that it was because of Ram Mohan Niadu that the party bagged six out of seven Assembly segments under the Srikakulam parliamentary constituency in the 2014 elections.
He was elected with huge margin of 1,27,572 votes against his nearest rival and YSRCP candidate Reddy Santi in the 2014 elections. However, he is now facing tough competition from Duvvada Sreenivas. Although several candidates filed papers for the Lok Sabha constituency, the main contest is between the TDP and YSRCP. As YSRCP candidates are giving tough fight to their ruling party rivals in all seven Assembly constituencies in this election, it will reflect in the Lok Sabha election results as well.
The literacy rate is not more than 61.74 per cent in Srikakulam, that too 52.08 per cent among female population. Majority of the evacuees of Vamsadhara reservoir project are not happy with the TDP government on the issue of payment of compensation. Although they had demanded compensation and other packages as per the 2013 R&R Act, the TDP government had failed to do so. The real beneficiaries were said to be deceived by the middlemen. Similarly, in the case of Bavanapadu port, farmers and fishermen community have been demanding compensation on the lines of that paid to the evacuees of international airport of Bhogapuram.
As many as seven railway stations in the district from Ichchapuram to Palasa are under the purview of Khurda division of Odisha while the rest are under the control of Viskha division at present.Although people of Ichchapuram and Palasa constituencies expected the merger of the seven railway station to the Visakha zone by the time the new railway zone was announced, the rest of the railway stations in the district were also declared to merge with the Rayagada railway division of Odihsa.
The TDP government had promised to grant ST community status to the fishermen community, but the party failed to keep its word. Though there were no allegations against young Ram Mohan Naidu, he is allegedly being controlled by his uncle (brother of his father) and minister K Atchannadiu. On the other hand, no major development projects were occurred in the constituency during the regime of Ram Mohan Naidu. Moreover, Duvvada Sreenivas belongs to the leading Kalinga community in the district, where the candidates from the leading community were elected as MPs 10 times in 16 Lok Sabha elections. Kalinga community is the leading community in the district followed by Kapu and Velama, Vysya and fishermen.