TDP candidate, a doctor, delays poll campaign to help patient deliver.

Gottipati Lakshmi is the party’s candidate from the Darsi assembly constituency for the May 13 state election. Dr Gottipati Lakshmi, a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader who will contest the upcoming Andhra Pradesh assembly election, delayed her poll campaign to help a patient deliver via a caesarean (C) section. Lakshmi, the TDP candidate from the Darsi assembly constituency in the Prakasam district, was about to leave for campaigning on Thursday, when she was informed about a woman who was losing amniotic fluid – the condition can lead to miscarriage besides endangering the mother – at a hospital in Guntur. The Telugu Desam leader, who belongs to a political family and will make her electoral debut, went to the private hospital where the patient was admitted, and conducted the surgery to save both the mother and the newborn. “The mother and child are healthy. I will build a hospital here once the TDP wins,” she told NDTV. “Nothing in this world brings me more joy than than welcoming a life onto this Earth. Babies and smile motivate me to keep going. It was a good day,” Lakshmi posted on X (formerly Twitter). Polling for all 175 assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh will be held on May 13, and the counting of votes will be done on June 4. The TDP, led by ex-chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, is contesting in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena. The TDP will contest 144 seats, Jana Sena 21, and the BJP, 10. The southern state is currently governed by chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party (YSCRP), which bagged 151 constituencies in the previous 2019 polls.