By Sushil Kutty
Some of the politically powerful Reddys of Andhra Pradesh have a grouse with fellow Reddy and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy who also faces anti-incumbency just like K Chandrashekar Rao of Telangana faced and lost. So, the YSR Congress Party is kind of vulnerable right now and the Congress is upbeat after its stupendous Telangana victory. Also, by June next year, Andhra Pradesh would be without a capital city of its own as its lease on Hyderabad, so to speak, will lapse by then and Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy will be blamed for sitting on this capital issue for a decade.
Not having a Capital will be a capital issue in both the Lok Sabha and the assembly elections to be held in April-May 2024. The Congress, fresh from its Telangana victory, is upbeat and YSRCP’s main rival, the Telugu Desam Party, fancies its chances, something that the Bharatiya Janata Party cannot, not even in its wildest dreams. And for whatever it is worth, the BJP is an ally of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, whose party’s stranglehold on Andhra Pradesh politics appears to be loosening.
Come June 2024, whichever party wins the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections and the majority of the state’s Lok Sabha seats will be celebrating in a new capital city. There is Amaravati, which was N Chandrababu Naidu’s dream project but was placed on the backburner by Jagan Mohan Reddy. So Andhra Pradesh is looking at “zero capital” though Visakhapatnam and Kurnool are touted as alternatives.
The fact is, Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy is slow to take decisions. Some say it’s his ingrained vindictiveness. Naidu’s recent incarceration was an instance of Jagan Mohan Reddy punishing adversaries. And the Congress is an adversary. The Congress knows Andhra Pradesh far better than both the YSRCP and the TDP, combined. But ever since 2014, the Congress party has been in decline in Andhra Pradesh.
The bifurcation left the party depleted in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. But with anti-incumbency beating KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana, Congress spirits have been soaring in Andhra Pradesh. Now, following its victory in Telangana, the Congress believes it has a chance to repeat the Telangana win in Jagan Mohan Reddy’s Andhra Pradesh, too.
This after drawing two successive blanks in the 2014 and 2019 assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Andhra Pradesh accounts for 25 Lok Sabha seats. Whichever party corners the majority of the 25 could even become ‘Kingmaker’ if the BJP falls short of majority 272. There are 175 assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress considers its chances high; especially after the back to back victories in Karnataka and Telangana.
The next pit-stop for the Congress — Andhra Pradesh. According to one analysis, the Congress wants to “test the waters” in Andhra Pradesh, the party which for long was held responsible for the split in the undivided Andhra Pradesh and therefore was punished. Congress’s Telangana victory has energized party workers in Andhra Pradesh and there’s an undercurrent of suppressed euphoria.
State Congress leaders are counting the chickens before they are hatched. And if there’s a shortage of resources, including funds, Telangana and Karnataka will help foot the bill in putting forth a creditable campaign, and fight. The Congress also believes the state unit has a leader to rival Telangana Congress Chief Revanth Reddy in Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Gidugu Rudra Raju.
Today, Revanth Reddy is Telangana Chief Minister and he will definitely be one of the star campaigners for the Congress in the electioneering in Andhra Pradesh which starts from January 20. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s “anti-incumbency” is pitted against “changing equations” between the BJP, the Congress and actor Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP), which has also been flirting with the BJP.
The Congress intends to initiate a door-to-door campaign in the entire Andhra Pradesh. There’s also the AICC centenary celebrations to be held in Kakinada before the year is out. Reports talk of Jagan Mohan Reddy losing his composure and wondering what to do. Corrective measures include changing party functionaries, which is why certain Reddys are on the warpath, and changing constituencies of some ministers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi-like Jagan Reddy also believes in carpet bombing and scorched earth and so he intends to win the entire lot of 175 assembly seats and, like Modi’s “Congress Mukt Bharat”, intends to “decimate the TDP’. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s slogan for the assembly elections is ‘Why not 175?’ and ‘AP needs Jagan’. The Congress wouldn’t find Andhra Pradesh a piece of cake like Telangana. (IPA Service)
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