THE BIG BUCKS IN AP BY-POLLS

DESARAJU SURYA
Hyderabad: The by-elections to one Lok Sabha and 18 Assembly seats held yesterday in Andhra Pradesh are re-writing the records for all the negative reasons. Be it the unhindered distribution of liquor, money, gold -- and what not -- to voters and then the betting on the prospects of different parties and candidates, everything has been happening on an unprecedented scale leaving everyone in shocking dismay.
As voters lined up at polling booths in large numbers to exercise their franchise in the by-elections, punters were busy in the main cities and towns of the state resetting their stakes on the results of the battle.
Anything less than 16 Assembly seats for the YSR Congress -- the favourite in the race -- is not worth the bucks and punters are said to be rejecting all such bets.
The YSRC started off as the favourite ever since the poll schedule was announced last month but it was given only about 12 seats initially. The arrest of YSRC president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and the "sympathy" his mother and sister generated during the campaign trail have raised the party's stock steeply.
Now, the party is expected to win 17 seats and possibly as a biggest surprise the 18th (Parkal in Telangana) as well, making it a "clean sweep".
Accordingly, punters have changed the stakes and are betting heavily only on Jagan's party.
As per speculation, all the eight seats in Rayalaseema region will fall in YSRC kitty without any doubt. In coastal Andhra, one out of nine seats, at best, may go to others.
Punters, who commission their own surveys in most cases, say there was a 7.5 per cent swing in favour of YSRC after Jagan's arrest on May 27. That could be a bit outlandish but there is certainly a fair amount of swing.
Jagan's mother apart, his sister Sharmila was the real trump card for YSRC.
The huge voter turnout in almost all the constituencies was sort of a "repeat" of the Kadapa by-election last year when Jagan himself won the Lok Sabha seat by a record margin of over 5.45 lakh votes.
It's also a clear indicator of the strong anti-government sentiment among people. That will reflect in the results on June 15.
With the stakes being so high in the by-election both for YSRC as well as Congress, the money put in betting was also said to be "too huge".
A Congress MP from coastal Andhra, known for his interest in betting on electoral results, is said to have put in heavy sums on these by-polls as well.
In a few constituencies in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema, the contesting candidates too have put stakes on their own prospects, making the bettng game interesting.
The expenditure (by candidates and political parties) in these by-elections has been astronomical (bare estimates put the figure at Rs 700 crore) and now the betting stakes might well overshoot that.