YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) candidate from the Mandapeta constituency of Andhra Pradesh, Thota Trimurthulu, who was recently convicted for the 1996 assault and forcible tonsuring of Dalit men, has lost the state assembly elections by a margin of 44435 votes. Vegulla Jogeswara Rao from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) secured victory, polling 116309 votes. 

Since the creation of the Mandapeta constituency during the 2008 delimitation process, Jogeswar Rao has served as its MLA and the constituency has been considered as the TDP's home turf. Jogeswar Rao emerged victorious three times in 2009, 2014, and 2019. 

Trimurthulu, a 65-year-old politician, was convicted on April 16, 2024 by a Visakhapatnam court. However, he secured bail and declared that he would contest the sentence in the High Court. 

The conviction came 27 years after the incident, in which Trimurthulu, a member of the privileged Kapu caste, and eight others were found guilty of assaulting five Dalit men. They were sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and fined Rs 42,000 each. 

The atrocity took place in 1994 when Trimurthulu, then an independent candidate from the Ramachandrapuram constituency in the undivided East Godavari district, targeted five Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) polling agents who refused to support his rigging attempts. Two years after becoming an MLA, Trimurthulu and his associates tonsured Dalit men Koti Chinna Raju and Dadala Venkata Ratnam, and assaulted Challapudi Pattabhiramayya, Kanikella Ganapati, and Puvvala Venkata Ramana. 

On January 7, 1997, Trimurthulu and his co-accused were arrested and placed under remand. After being out on bail, Trimurthulu used a variety of tactics and political power to stall the case's progress, including contesting the victims' caste certificates. It was only after the High Court directed the Visakhapatnam trial court in 2024 to accept the certificates as evidence that the case made progress and the judgement was pronounced in favour of the victims. 

Trimurthulu has served as MLA of Ramachandrapuram, a town in Konaseema district, four times in 30 years. In these years he has grown to be influential in Konaseema politics. He won as a TDP candidate in 1999 and 2014, and as a Congress Party candidate in 2012. In 2019, after losing to Ch Venugopala Krishna of the YSRCP as a TDP candidate, Trimurthulu switched to YSRCP following which Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy nominated him as an MLC. 

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27 yrs after assaulting Dalit men who didn't support him, YSRCP candidate convicted