Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Well-planned campaign pays off

G. Narasimha Rao

VISAKHAPATNAM: A campaign that was planned well and executed with sincerity ensured a comfortable victory for M.V.S. Sarma from the Legislative Council's north Andhra graduates' constituency.

From the time of enrolment of voters, the CPI (M) leaders and cadre, and life insurance employees' union, employees of steel plant, BSNL, postal, and other departments, teachers and Mr. Sarma's supporters worked in a planned manner. While Mr. Sarma met as many voters as possible in the three districts, his supporters contacted each and every voter and made sure that he or she was aware that Mr. Sarma was in the contest. On the day of polling too they were in touch with the voters to check whether they had cast their vote or not.

Mr. Sarma did not spend much money compared to some other contestants but depended mostly on the party cadre and supporters.

His campaign was akin to the method adopted by BJP leader P.V. Chalapathi Rao in the past when he was elected twice to the Council, recalled the party candidate this time J. Prudhviraj. Contacting every voter and keeping in touch with them with the help of BJP cadre (or the then Jana Sangh) in the three districts was the strategy successfully adopted by Mr. Rao. However, BJP lacked a large number of workers this time, Mr. Prudhviraj, who finished third, pointed out.

Priorities

The results of the elections not only here but in other parts of the State showed that the people had understood that ill effects of globalisation and were not ready to accept it and CPI(M) which was fighting globalisation gained confidence with the response from the people, Mr. Sarma said.

The State Government had not addressed itself to the task of training the unemployed and underemployed graduates to secure jobs in the companies that were coming up in the area, Mr. Sarma pointed out on Monday night while waiting for the result to be officially announced.

Among his other priorities were upgrading the PG Centre at Etcherla into a university, setting up a cultural university at Vizianagaram and improving the lot of private school teachers.

"Overall, the education system must be protected", Mr. Sarma felt.

Mr. Sarma felt the campaigning was a relatively healthy one.

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