On paper, the Rajampet Lok Sabha constituency in Andhra Pradesh looks quite normal, being one of the 25 parliamentary seats in the State with 16.65 lakh voters. However, the ground reality is entirely different. It is an administrative maze that perfectly captures the chaos of the State’s district reorganisation.
The MP seat’s epicentre remains Rajampeta town itself, which is back in YSR Kadapa district after being merged with Annamayya district in 2022. Of its seven Assembly segments, only Rajampeta and parts of Vontimitta and Siddavatam mandals are in Kadapa. Rayachoti and Thamballapalle Assembly constituencies are in Annamayya, with its headquarters now shifting to Madanapalle. Pileru and Madanapalle are also in Annamayya district, though slated for the proposed Madanapalle district. Railway Kodur (SC), after the latest reorganisation, has been formally moved to Tirupati district, while Punganur straddles Annamayya and Chittoor districts. This way, one MP represents voters in four districts — Kadapa, Annamayya, Chittoor and Tirupati.
A farmer in Rayachoti has to go to Madanapalle for district work, to Rajampet to visit his MP’s old office, and to Tirupati if he needs to meet the MP at his residence. For a constituency where interior roads are still patchy and bus connectivity is poor, representation has become a logistical exercise.
On the other hand, a student in Railway Kodur applying for a Central government scholarship currently gets his caste and income certificate from the Collectorate in Tirupati. However, his MP recommendation for the same scholarship must route through the Rajampet MP liaison office, whose nodal officer is still based in Kadapa. The file travels from Railway Kodur to Tirupati to Kadapa back to Kodur, totalling over 320 km and often missing deadlines.
When the Cheyyeru river flooded on November 19, 2021, the Pincha project upstream breached, and 3.2 lakh cusecs hit the Annamayya project at Badanagadda in Rajampet mandal, exceeding its capacity of 2.17 lakh cusecs. The disaster left 40 people dead and displaced over 1,250 families in Nandalur and Rajampet. At that time, rescue operations had to be coordinated among the Kadapa Collector, Tirupati police, and Annamayya Irrigation officials.
Meanwhile, Rajampet has historically been a Congress bastion, with 11 victories, before becoming a YSRCP fortress. The current MP, P.V. Midhun Reddy, won in 2024 even as the alliance wave swept the State, highlighting the strong Kadapa-family network that reportedly still controls the seat. Yet, public and political groups ask a blunt question. “Why does an MP whose political base and family stronghold are in Punganur and Chittoor, and whose official residence is in Tirupati city, represent a seat named after Rajampet in Kadapa?”
It is widely observed that the MP is reportedly more accessible in Tirupati than in his own constituency headquarters. In Piler and Madanapalle, voters complain that they are culturally closer to Tirupati and Chittoor but are forced into a Kadapa-centric political narrative during elections. In Railway Kodur, which just celebrated its merger with Tirupati district, people openly claim their Lok Sabha identity no longer matches their district identity.
Officials, on the other hand, claim that the 2022 decision to carve districts along parliamentary-constituency lines has backfired in the case of Rajampet. The recent Cabinet decision to undo some of those anomalies — such as moving Railway Kodur to Tirupati, returning Rajampet to Kadapa, and creating Madanapalle district — has only complicated the situation rather than finding a solution. At present, Rajampet has four Collectors, four SPs, four different political ecosystems, and remains a seat that everyone claims but no district currently owns.
Published – October 22, 2026 08:34 pm IST
