Meet the YSRCP MLA, now ‘missing’, caught ‘destroying’ EVM on camera

Caught on video damaging an EVM machine at a polling booth during the elections in Andhra Pradesh on May 13 – and “absconding” since it went viral – Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy is a four-time Macherla MLA who, along with his brother, wields much influence in the constituency that is known for its violent politics.

Keeping in view the constituency’s history, the Election Commission (EC) had declared Macherla a sensitive zone this time, with 151 of its 299 polling booths classified as “hypersensitive”.

Belonging to Kandlakunta village of erstwhile Guntur district (now Palnadu), Ramakrishna started his political journey with the Congress, and was a Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency member who was first elected as MLA in 2009 on the Congress ticket.

Seen as a loyalist of the late Andhra chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR), Ramakrishna quit the Congress when Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy floated the YSRCP in 2012 following his father’s death in 2009.

In the subsequent bypoll in 2012, Ramakrishna defeated his TDP rival by over 15,000 votes and went on to retain the seat in the 2014 by a margin of over 3,000 votes. In the 2019 Assembly elections, he increased his margin to over 20,000 votes. He was later appointed the government whip in the Assembly.

Belonging to the powerful Reddy group, Ramakrishna and his brother Pinnelli Venkatrami Reddy are seen to be influential in the constituency, which otherwise is numerically dominated by the Perika (OBC) community.

“The brothers command immense respect and people are scared to even talk against them. Given the history of political violence associated with the constituency, be it the YSRCP or TDP, their influence has grown manifold over the years,” a local YSRCP leader, who did not wish