In Seemandhra's first election, it's all about Jagan Reddy

Love him or hate him, but you can’t ignore him. YS Jaganmohan Reddy has indeed worked his way up to emerge as a formidable force on the political arena of Andhra Pradesh. His political debut under the shadow of his father YS Rajasekhara Reddy wasn’t exactly low key, given that his father tried to get his younger brother Vivekananda Reddy to resign from the Kadapa Lok Sabha seat midway in favour of Jagan. This was thwarted by Sonia Gandhi, although she did agree to field Jagan from the same seat in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Since then however, Jagan has never had a comfortable chemistry with Rahul Gandhi and naturally so with Sonia Gandhi. [caption id=“attachment_1508773” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The whole election has been poised around Jagan: PTI[/caption] While YSR Reddy never tested his equations with the first family of the Congress, this has not been the case with Jagan. The very first public meeting he addressed in 2009 at Nallakaluva in Kurnool district, close to the site of his father’s chopper crash, itself indicated the widening chasm between him and the Congress high command. So why did Jagan choose to take on the mighty Congress high command head-on? Simple. Because he was not allowed to succeed YSR as Chief Minister. Plus, he did not want to end up as a minister of state or a minister in the state cabinet like most of the progeny of several erstwhile chief ministers. His Odarpu Yatra, a journey he embarked on to console the families of those who either died or committed suicide following YSR’s demise, became a thorn in the side of several Congress leaders within the state and also in Delhi. The dissent within the party in fact, had simmered so much that it erupted in the form of Jagan breaking away and taking a handful of legislators along with him. He resigned his MP seat and sought reelection on his own, to post a resounding victory with a majority of a whopping 5.50 lakh votes. The subsequent CBI cases and his confinement to the prison on the charges of graft for 16 long months have also surely helped him garner popular support from every nook and cranny of the State. His arrest on the eve of the byelections in June 2012, which his party fought as ‘semi-finals’, helped him make triumphant electoral gains. Many months down the line, he has established himself as a leader. A victory or a defeat won’t dent his stature much. His sister Sharmila made the best use of the opportunity to launch a padayatra and rode on the crest of his popularity. Her long march was indeed projected as an answer to the ‘Vasthunna Meekosam’ padayatra of TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu. The bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, while Jagan was in prison, also came as a shot in the arm for the incarcerated leader. He launched a hunger strike in the jail and drew the attention of all. Until the bifurcation was announced by the Congress Working Committee in July 2013, the YSR Congress had demanded equal justice for both regions. Soon after the CWC announcement, the YSRC eschewed its slogan of equal justice and took the United Andhra Pradesh stand. The move has made it that much easier for Jagan to remain popular among the people of Seemaandhra. The ‘hero’s welcome’ accorded to Jagan on the day of his release on bail sent chills down the spines of the Congress as well as the TDP. In the process of spiting Jaganmohan Reddy and his bandwagon, the TDP and its friendly media inadvertently have taken a high moral ground, which, obviously is shaky. Barring his 16 months of imprisonment, Jagan has made sure that he has remained amidst the people. The period in jail too also seems to have helped him work out the permutations and combinations in choosing candidates for the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. With the Congress redrawing the rule of the electoral battle by formalizing the division of Andhra Pradesh, Jagan focused only on the Seemaandhra region, by taking it easy in Telangana where his party has no stakes, unlike the TDP. A senior journalist from the heartland of Telangana, however, pointed out that the fight would have been between the YSR Congress and the TRS, had the state not been bifurcated and the scene would have been completely different. The YSR Congress launched umpteen ‘deekshas’ in the last four years espousing one cause or the other to keep its political pot boiling. The party, and more so Jagan, remained the punching bag of the TDP, the Congress and the CPI, and a large section of Telugu media houses. The battle lines between Eenadu and Jagan became too conspicuous to ignore on the eve of general elections. The soft-pedaling by the BJP, the TRS, and the CPI-M towards Jagan has surely come as a breather to the embattled leader, who is a hot favourite for the position of the first Chief Minister of Seemaandhra. Though political parties are talking about manifestos and development, clearly these elections in Seemaandhra are revolving around him, with everyone being forced to choose whether they are pro or anti Jagan. In the days of social media, there is no scope for facile political criticism, Jagan either has die-hard fans who fanatically support him or bitterest critics who haul him over the coals.