Alur lags behind in development

Alur: Alur constituency is the hometown constituency of present Minister for Labour Gummanur Jayaram.

The constituency lags behind in terms of development. There are no major or minor industries and no water facility to meet drinking and irrigation needs.

There was a long demand from the people of these mandals to complete the Vedavathy project and Nagaradona reservoir.

If the Nagaradona was completed then it would have catered to the irrigation needs of 7,000 hectares in the constituency and drinking water needs of Ramadurgam and Thimmapuram villages.

Poor literacy rate and unemployment is another important issue here. About 80 to 90 per vcent of people are daily wage labourers.

Due to lack of work in the constituency, migrations take place on a large-scale. All successive governments had failed to fix the problems. The con stituency has six mandals, Holagunda, Halaharvi, Chippagiri, Aspari, Devanakonda including Alur.

The constituency is dominated by Boya (Valmiki) and Kurva communities. The Boyas occupy about 50 to 60 per cent while Kurva 20 per cent. Though the majority are BCs, Moolinti Mareppa who is from SC community (Madiga) had become Minister in YS Rajasekhara Reddy government.

He was Minister for Marketing. He won the Assembly seat for two consecutive times, once in 1999 and the other in 2004.

The constituency was a reserved one till 2009. Later it had been changed to general category. After it was declared as general, Mareppa was denied the seat. Gummanur Jayaram who hails from BC community has also won the Alur seat two consecutive times (2014 and 2019) and is presently is the Minister for Labour in YSR Congress government.

This constituency has a total population of 2,49,524. Of these, 1,26,212 are males, 1,23,362 female and 51 others.

The first Assembly election to Alur constituency was held in 1972. P Rajaratna Rao Congress contested the election. He won the election by securing 18399 votes. He defeated his nearest rival Joharapuram Kariappa of Indian National Congress (organisation) by a margin of 2,211 votes. Similarly in 1978, Masala Eranna of Congress (I) was elected as MLA. He defeated H Eranna of Janata Party (JNP) by a margin of 13,398 votes.

In 1983, Masala Eranna (INC) lost the election. K Basappa who contested as Independent candidate was elected as MLA. In 1985 elections Masala Eranna of INC beat P Rajaratna Rao of TDP by a margin of 3,378 votes.

In 1989, Gundlannagari Loknath (Congress) was elected as MLA. His rival Rangaiah of TDP lost the polls. In 1999, Masala Eranna staged a comeback. This time he contested from TDP and emerged victorious by defeating his nearest rival Moolinti Mareppa of the Congress.

In 2004, Moolinti Mareppa of Congress won the Alur seat against his rival Masala Padmaja of TDP. In 2009, after the constituency was declared as general category, Patil Neerja Reddy who has contested from INC was elected as MLA. She defeated her nearest Gummanur Jayaram of the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP).

Later in 2014, Gummanur Jayaram won the elections on behalf of YSRCP by defeating B Veerabhadra Gowd of TDP. Again in 2019, Jayaram emerged victorious by defeating TDP’s Kotla Sujathamma.