Lakshmi Parvathi: Happy

Hyderabad, May 16: Mother versus son, niece against uncle, victorious couples, defeated brothers…. It was all in the family for some of the combatants in Andhra Pradesh in Election 2004.

In one case, a defeated wife had to keep smiling because her husband triumphed.

Perhaps, the worst variation the polls threw up was the fight in Vijayawada West, where a mother was in the fray against her son. Ironically, both were from the Congress.

While the Congress had nominated V. Radhakrishna, his mother Chenupati Ratnakumari contested as a rebel and campaigned against her own son. After his victory, Radhakrishna made it a point to mention that his mother had tried to defeat him at any cost.

At least three couples clinched victories, either making it to Parliament or sealing a place in the Assembly.

Purandareswari, the second daughter of the founder of the Telugu Desam Party, .T. Rama Rao, won the Baptla Lok Sabha seat defeating her uncle, D. Rama Naidu, by a margin of 90,000 votes. Her husband, Dr D. Venkateswar Rao, won from the Parchur Assembly seat in Prakasham district.

NTR’s second wife, Lakshmi Parvathi, who contested from Atmakur segment in Kurnool district, however, lost her deposit. “I am not worried about my loss but am happy that (. Chandrababu) Naidu has been toppled,” she said.

After he toppled his father-in-law NTR, Chandrababu Naidu had stubbed out all opposition from within the family. However, another member of the NTR family, Harikrishna, who fought against Chandrababu Naidu in 1999 by forming his own party — Anna TDP — was not in the fray this time.

Former Congress chief minister . Janardhan Reddy entered the Lok Sabha from Visakhapatnam. His wife, Rajyalakshmi, has been re-elected to the Assembly from Venkatagiri. The 75-year-old Reddy had earlier announced he was in the race for chief minister, but his health came in the way, and the post went to a younger man, 55-year-old doctor-turned-politician Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy.

Another couple who triumphed were Kotal Suryaprakash Reddy, the younger son of another former Congress chief minister, K. Vijayabhaskar Reddy, and his wife, Sujata.

While Suryaprakash won the Kurnool parliamentary seat defeating former Desam minister K.E. Krishnamurthy, his wife won the Dhone Assembly seat beating K.E. Prabhakar, the younger brother of Krishnamurthy.

There were couples who lost out, like the well-known husband-wife team from Kurnool district — Bhooma Nagi and his wife Shoba. Both contested as Desam candidates.

While Shoba lost the Nandyal parliamentary seat, her husband was defeated in the Alladagga Assembly seat. Their only solace was that Shoba’s father, S.V. Subba Reddy, survived the anti-incumbency wave to win the Pattikonda Assembly seat.

One couple had mixed results. While Botsa Satyanarayana won the Bobbili Assembly seat in coastal Andhra, his wife, Jhansi Rani, lost the Bobbili parliamentary seat in what was her electoral debut.