The Andhra Pradesh high court continued the suspense over the validity of Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas (Nani) in the Kondapalli Municipality.

The Kondapalli municipality election has become controversial with both the ruling YSR Congress and the Opposition TDP winning 14 wards each, leaving one ward for the Independent. The two parties have tried to win over the lone independent ward member. The TDP had finally won the heart of the independent, taking its strength to 15, one seat more than the YSR Congress.

With this, local MLA Vasantha Krishna Prasad of YSR Congress secured ex-officio membership and thus the YSR Congress strength too had gone up to 15. Alerted with this, local MP, Kesineni Srinivas opted his ex-officio membership to Kondapalli Municipality.

The YSR Congress raised objections to this stating that Kesineni had already given a letter to the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation for ex-officio membership and his letter for Kondapalli is not valid. The MP went to the high court and secured permission to cancel his membership in Vijayawada Municipal Corporation and get fresh membership in Kondapalli.

This had again given one vote extra to the TDP in the council. However, the YSR Congress challenged the transfer of Kesineni’s vote from Vijayawada Municipal Corporation to Kondapalli. The high court had directed the district officials to conduct the elections for the council chairman and vice-chairman, and not to announce it.

This drama happened in November 2021 and the court finally took up the case for hearing on Thursday. The court held both the YSR Congress and the TDP petitions valid and posted the case for next hearing after three weeks.