ELURU: Cross voting in the Panchayat Raj elections proved to be a source of embarrassment for political parties in West Godavari district. The phenomenon was observed in at least half-a-dozen out of 46 mandals in the district.

As a result, if a party secured highest number of Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTCs) in a mandal, it found itself at the receiving end in the Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency election in the same mandal.

In Achanta, Congress candidate Gubbala Tammaiah, who is one among the frontrunners for the Zilla Parishad Chairperson post, won the ZPTC election with an impressive majority.

However, his party had to settle for six MPTCs when the TDP bagged eight in the same mandal. In Kalla, the TDP got more number of MPTCs while the concerned ZPTC went to the Congress. The Congress won the Mogaltur ZPTC while the TDP has an edge over the former by four seats in the MPTC election in this mandal. In Penugonda, represented by Congress MLA Pitani Satyanarayana, the TDP got four more MPTCs than the Congress. However, the ruling party managed to win the ZPTC.

The cross voting in Undi rattled the newfound love between the TDP and CPI(M).

The Undi ZPTC was allotted to the CPI(M) in seat sharing with the TDP. Noticeably, the Congress managed to win the ZPTC because of cross voting. In the MPTC election in the mandal, the TDP got 13 seats even as the Congress managed only four.

`Unholy alliance'

To quote CPI(M) district committee secretary Mantena Sitaram, the trend in Undi was a clear case for the `unholy' alliance the TDP allegedly had with the Congress in violation of the seat-sharing agreement.

Interestingly, the TDP's prospects of winning the Undi Mandal Parishad President solely depends on the CPI(M), which got one MPTC. The Congress got 10 MPTCs, the TDP nine and CPI-M one in this mandal.

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