Kasturi Satya Prasad: Emerging young leader challenging ‘outsiders’ in Andhra Pradesh’s Nidadavolu

Kasturi Satya Prasad interacting with people from his constituency, Nidadavolu

Located in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, the historical town of Nidadavolu is gearing up for an interesting political clash in the upcoming assembly elections. The TDP and YSR Congress have traditionally dominated the political landscape of the town. But in 2024, Independent candidate Kasturi Satya Prasad, also known as Nani, has thrown his hat into the ring and is challenging the bigwigs with the hope of giving local voice to a constituency represented by "outsiders".

In an exclusive conversation with Moneycontrol, Nani, 42, said that political parties have always fielded parachute candidates from Nidadavolu instead of giving a chance to local faces who can raise the issues of the people.

"Till now, there hasn't been any local candidate who has become an MLA ... moreover, non-local candidates come here and fight elections [from Nidadavolu]. They even take houses on rent and eventually move back to their hometowns after losing the elections. That has been the issue here since Independence. I realised that we needed a local candidate who could raise the issues of the constituency in the assembly," he said.

For the upcoming state elections, YSR Congress has repeated its incumbent MLA G Srinivas Naidu from Nidadavolu while Jana Sena's Kandula Durgesh will represent NDA.

Nani rued that the constituency, which has a rich historical past and used to have a flourishing market, witnessed an economic decline over the years due to a lack of local representation. He compared Nidadavolu with several other towns within the 25-km radius, such as Rajahmundry and Jangareddigudem, which have undergone a major transformation in the last 30-40 years due to the development of schools, colleges, hospitals and industries.

"My point is that we lack basic infrastructure because of non-local representation," he said.

Dinesh Akula, a senior journalist and political observer in Andhra Pradesh, told Moneycontrol that leaders like Nani are banking on the disenchantment of voters vis-a-vis the traditional politics of parties like YSR Congress and TDP. "By raising local issues and highlighting the specific concerns of the constituency, one can hope to strike the right chord with the voters," he said.

Nani told Moneycontrol that he has identified several multiple issues plaguing Nidadavolu and presented comprehensive solutions to address them.

For instance, to tackle alcohol abuse, he has proposed a liquor ration policy. "Under this, every individual will have to show his Aadhaar card while purchasing alcohol and can get only 2-3 bottles of liquor a month. This will help limit their drinking. To prevent further misuse, whoever is purchasing liquor, be it for themselves or a friend, will not get benefits of government schemes," he said.

He added that he intends to empower women by integrating them into the local cottage industries. Simultaneously, he said that he would leverage government support and market connections to bolster these enterprises. "I’ve identified 90 cottage industries in the region. We plan to strengthen these industries by helping them get government subsidies and financing," he said.

For farmers, he said there must be a licensing system in place so that the government benefits can reach the actual farmers.

"The government is spending a lot of money on giving subsidies to farmers, right from offering interest-free loans to Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) payments. But 60% of the so-called farmers are not actual tillers. They have their own business interests or high-paying jobs elsewhere. They lease out their land to small farmers but continue to take advantage of these benefits," he said.

The licensing system can help solve this problem, he said. "Every time people get their driver’s license renewed, they have to clear a test to show they are fit for driving. Such a system in farming will help us identify the real farmers and weed out those who don’t know anything about farming," he said.

Besides this, Nani said that he wants to improve healthcare infrastructure by upgrading the local hospitals so that they can accomodate up to a 100 beds and invest more money to improve infrastructure of schools and colleges in his constituency.

Red Revolution movement

Nani, who has been actively involved in politics since 2018-19, said he began his journey with Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena but parted ways due to ideological differences with the party.

During that period, Nani also launched the "Red Revolution" movement where he and his team members carried out two padyatras across villages in his town to identify and spread awareness about local issues.

"With Red Revolution, we tried to identify the social and economic issues faced by the locals in the area and painted their 10 major problems on the walls in red colour. This helped us spread awareness about the local issues among the villagers," he said.

Armed with the learnings from his padyatras and potential solutions for the local issues, Nani said that he finally decided to start his own political journey on April 14 last year on the occasion of BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary.

He said that besides his quest to solve local problems, he also realised that there was no ideological challenge to the BJP in Andhra Pradesh.

"Both TDP and Jana Sena are now with BJP. Even YSR Congress is indirectly aligned with BJP. That’s why both TDP and YSR Congress are not raising the pitch for special status for Andhra Pradesh, which was our original demand. I felt that there was no opposition to the BJP in Andhra Pradesh and no ideological challenge to the saffron party. Even Congress leadership has been lackluster," he said.

Assembly elections will be held in Andhra Pradesh on May 13.