Araku is the only constituency Lok Sabha constituency reserved for Scheduled Tribes out of 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh and came into existence in 2008 after the Delimitation Commission of India recommended implementation of delimitation of parliamentary constituencies.
Kothapalli Geetha of the YSR Congress won the seat in 2014 defeating TDP’s Gummidi Sandhyarani. The YSR Congress has large support among tribals in the constituency and is hoping to retain the seat. The welfare and development of tribal communities is a major election issue among different parties. Other communities in the constituency include Kapus, Scheduled Castes, Yadavas and Matsyakaras. There is a Maoist threat in the constituency and last year TDP MLA Sarveswara Rao was shot dead.
Aruku parliamentary constituency is spread across Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and East Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh. According to the 2011 census, out of total 1926513 population 91.59% is rural and 8.41% is urban population. The Scheduled castes (SC) and Scheduled tribes (ST) ratio is 7.23 and 54.76, respectively out of the total population.
Araku Lok Sabha constituency in numbers:
Name of the Lok Sabha constituency: Araku
Reservation nature of constituency: ST
Sitting MP, Party: Kothapalli Geetha, YSRC
Winning margin in 2014: 91,398 votes
Runner up name, party: Gummidi Sandhyarani, TDP
Number of voters in 2014: 1,272,724
Percentage of votes polled in 2014: 71.47
Number of polling booths in 2014: 1,628
Number of women voters: 650,308
First Published:
Mar 17, 2019 17:04 IST
Source: HindustanTimes