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Updated: Apr 11, 2019 09:34 IST

YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday sounded confident that his party will come to power in Andhra Pradesh as he turned up early at a polling booth in Pulivendula, his assembly constituency.

“I’m very confident, people are looking for a change, vote without fear,” said Jagan Mohan after casting his vote in Pulivendula assembly constituency, a YSR Congress’s pocket borough, in Kadapa district of the state.

YSR Congress chief said he is confident that his party will secure “majority on its own” in the Andhra Pradesh assembly election and emerge as the leading party in the Lok Sabha polls in the state.

Jagan Mohan led an aggressive election campaign against the Telugu Desam Party government of N Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh while hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress at the same time.

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Andhra Pradesh is voting for both assembly and the Lok Sabha elections simultaneously. Polling is taking place for all 175 assembly constituencies and 25 Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh in the first phase of the parliamentary polls on Thursday. The seven-phase Lok Sabha polls will come to a close on May 19 and votes will be counted on May 23.

During his poll campaign, the YSR Congress maintained his party will keep equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress in post-election period at the Centre. He had indicated to be in favour of a hung Lok Sabha.

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Jagan Mohan accused both the BJP and the Congress of “betraying” Andhra Pradesh over the issue of special category status. In an interview to Hindustan Times, Jagan Mohan had recently said, “It is going to be a battle between credibility versus betrayal. [Chief minister] Chandrababu Naidu has betrayed Andhra Pradesh’s people. His entire governance, his promises of 2014 and what he delivered… all have fallen flat.”

On the BJP and the Congress, he said, “The Congress betrayed us by breaking the state against our wishes… They [BJP] have also failed us. The BJP included this in its manifesto and Modi promised 10 years special category status in Tirupati in 2014. And when he was in a position to deliver, he did nothing. So, he also cheated us.”