Andhra mayor results: women win Visakhapatnam, Guntur, Vizianagaram in direct vote

Women won the mayor's chair in at least three of Andhra Pradesh's municipal corporations in the urban local body elections held on Sunday, 1 November 2026, with results reported on 3 and 4 November. In Visakhapatnam, the Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) Mukka Sravani won the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) mayoral contest with 5,85,455 votes against 3,40,810 for the YSR Congress Party's (YSRCP) Varudu Kalyani. In Guntur, the TDP's Kovelamudi Lakshmi Aparna won with 2,00,565 votes against 1,08,411 for the YSRCP's Tadikonda Sridevi, a margin of 92,154. In Vizianagaram, the TDP's Avanapu Bhargavi took the mayor's post. This time the mayors were chosen by voters on a separate ballot cast the same day as the ward vote; in 2021, ward members elected the mayor.

A directly elected mayor has a different kind of authority from one picked by councillors. She has her own mandate from lakhs of voters, which makes her harder to replace through party deals inside the council and gives her a stronger voice in dealing with officials and the state government. In Visakhapatnam, that mandate now rests with a woman who won more than five lakh votes.

The results also show how reservation and direct elections work together. In Guntur, the mayor's post was reserved for women, which meant both the main parties had to field women. The contest was then decided by the whole city's vote rather than by a smaller group of councillors. In Visakhapatnam too, both the leading candidates were women. For women in local politics, who often enter through reserved ward seats, a direct city-wide race is a bigger stage and a clearer test of public support.

The wider political picture is a sweep. The TDP-led alliance won control of the major corporations, in a reversal of 2021, when the YSRCP swept the civic polls while it was in power in the state. Reports note that local governance in Andhra Pradesh has tended to follow the party ruling the state. For the new women mayors, the advantage is a friendly state government; the challenge will be to show independent results on water, roads, drainage and waste, the services that city voters judge them on.

Peepals calculation: Counting only the two leading candidates, Mukka Sravani took about 63% of the votes in Visakhapatnam (5,85,455 ÷ 9,26,265 ≈ 0.632), and Kovelamudi Lakshmi Aparna took about 65% in Guntur (2,00,565 ÷ 3,08,976 ≈ 0.649). The reported Visakhapatnam totals give a gap of 2,44,645, one vote more than the reported margin of 2,44,644. Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: The new mayors take charge with councils dominated by their own alliance, which should make it easier to pass budgets and resolutions in the first months.

Long-term: Direct election gives these women a personal mandate that could make them stronger figures in state politics, and it gives voters a single, visible person to hold to account for city services.

Who is affected: Residents of Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Vizianagaram; women councillors and party workers who now have senior role models in city government; and the state government, which works with the corporations on funding and projects.

What to watch next: Official final figures from the State Election Commission, which some result pages note are still provisional, and the swearing-in of the new mayors.

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