State elections in Andhra hand victory to Congress

Besides Gujarat, another business-friendly venue in recent years has been the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. The twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderad are home to India’s pharmaceutical giants such as Dr. Reddy’s Labs and to multinational corporatations’ India operations such as Oracle, Conexant, Microsoft and Google.  The Indian School of Business is also based in Andhra.  Along with national parliamentary elections, the state (provincial) assembly of Andhra was also up for play in the polls.

The Indian National Congress of Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh has routed other players, winning 186 out of 294 seats in the state assembly. This is more than four times that of the next largest party in the assembly: the regional Telugu Desam Party (TDP).  The TDP has historically been very strong in the state and many credit its leaders for bring economic growth to the region or at least to the cities.