After 17 general elections since its formation in 1951, the Chittoor Lok Sabha constituency remains one of the most backward areas in the country. Making it an SC-Reserved constituency in 2009 or the trifurcation of the 103-year-old Chittoor district in 2022 has not changed the fate of the people here.
Of the 17 general elections from 1952 till 2019, the Chittoor Lok Sabha seat was wrested by the Indian National Congress nine times, the Telugu Desam Party seven times and the YSR Congress Party once.
The last time the Congress won from here was in 1991, after losing to the Telugu Desam Party for the first time in the previous election in 1984, which was the debut of N.T. Rama Rao’s TDP in the general elections.
The TDP won the seat again in 1996, followed by mid-term polls in 1998 and 1999. It continued on the path of victory in the 2004, 2009, and 2014 elections but lost to the YSRCP in 2019.
Agrarian dominance
Spread over seven assembly segments of Chandragiri (now in the newly carved Tirupati district) and six constituencies that belong to the residual Chittoor district, including Nagari, Gangadhara Nellore (SC), Puthalapattu (SC), Chittoor, Palamaner, and Kuppam, the constituency primarily consists of the agrarian belt, dominated by mango and groundnut growers.
Known for perennial drought conditions in the western mandals from Chittoor to the Kuppam region, there is a gradual decline in paddy and sugarcane cultivation. After the closure of the cooperative sugar factories and private units in 2000, sugarcane cultivation started slowly disappearing from the constituency’s map. In the absence of any perennial river or irrigation water project, coupled with average to poor rainfall every year, the face of agriculture has started receiving a beating in recent years.
Unemployment
Rural poverty and discouraging agriculture prospects have forced thousands of youth, including those educated above the degree courses, to find their way to Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and other northern cities for employment, leaving a vacuum in the arena of cultivation.
The constituency witnesses the worst unemployment problem due to the complete absence of industries. Over 80% of the youth, immediately after graduation, are forced to leave their villages in search of jobs in neighbouring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It’s an open secret that over 4,000 youth from the Kuppam region alone travel daily to Bengaluru or adjoining industrial townships in Tamil Nadu to work as daily wage workers and skilled workers.
Known for its finest varieties of mangoes, the constituency has mango orchards spread over one lakh hectares, with an annual output of over 5 lakh metric tonnes. Though the mango farmers have insisted on forming a Mango Board for four decades, it has not materialized.
After the closure of the cooperative dairy sector in the region two decades ago, the dairy farmers cherish hurt feelings that they are being exploited by private dairies. With an incredible capacity to churn out 40 lakh litres of milk per day, Chittoor was once known as ‘Andhra’s Anand’, but those days are gone now.
The demand for a railway line to Chennai from Chittoor and public representations to facilitate Chittoor as a halting railway station for the Express trains between Tirupati and Katpadi junctions remain unfulfilled for two decades.
Making things ultimately disappointing, the Chittoor Lok Sabha constituency has no significant prospects in education and health sectors. While the Dravidian University in Kuppam, established in 1997, is on the verge of slipping into oblivion thanks to its language and linguistic motto, coupled with drastically falling admissions, the Chittoor region has no other University or government medical or engineering college. The western parts of the constituency remained the hotbed of child marriages for several decades, with a respite only in recent years.
A political highlight of the constituency is that the Telugu Desam Party national president, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, made his political debut from the Chandragiri Assembly constituency of Chittoor Lok Sabha constituency in 1978. He was the youngest MLA at 28 and a Cabinet Minister at 30 at that time.
Having won from Kuppam Assembly constituency for seven consecutive terms, Naidu is contesting for the eighth time from there. Hence, the Kuppam Assembly segment is considered the lifeline of any TDP candidate contesting from the Chittoor Lok Sabha constituency as it always got them victories with a huge majority. At the same time, the opposition parties consider Kuppam as their political doom
Having emerged as the clear alternative to the Congress in 2014 after the State bifurcation, the YSRCP wrested the Chittoor Lok Sabha in 2019. However, the YSRCP sitting MP, N. Reddappa, known as the loyalist of Forest Minister Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy, has drawn severe criticism that he remained inaccessible to the public, with his presence mostly limited to a couple of Assembly segments even as the pressing urban, semi-urban and rural problems remained unaddressed.
The YSRCP leadership announced Mr. Reddappa as the MLA candidate for the Gangadhara Nellore (SC) constituency but later allowed him to recontest as the Chittoor MP. His opponent is Daggumalla Prasada Rao, a former IRS officer, contesting as the TDP candidate. Mr. Rao has embarked on the promises of “eradicating unemployment” and “ushering in of industrial boom” in the region, coupled with an “agriculture and horticulture revolution.”
