ANDHRA PRADESH-I-Defeat in Victory

ANDHRA PRADESH-I Defeat in Victory K Balagopal THE press has hailed it as a repeat mandate for N T Rama Rao but his party's victory in the recently concluded panchayat (upper tier) elections is not all that spectacular. Compared to the 1985 assembly polls he has actually fallen short of maintaining his hold in terms of the percentage of posts won, while the Congress(I) has pulled itself up almost double; partly at NTR's expense but mainly at the expense of the other opposition parties. Barring the CPI(M), and that thanks to the party's alliance with NTR, all the others have come a sad cropper. The Congress(I) did even better in the municipal elections which were held simultaneously, winning more than half the 95 municipalities, including the corporation of Vijayawada.