The magic of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy (YSR) worked wonders for the Congress party in the past two Lok Sabha elections. What will his death bring for the party? This is the question party managers are struggling to answer after YSR’s son, Jaganmohan Reddy, announced the formation of a new party in the next 45 days. It is likely to be announced on Makar Sankranti (January 14).
The Congress is worried about the Assembly elections. But there is greater anxiety about the Lok Sabha polls. In the 14th Lok Sabha, the Congress had 159 seats, of which 29 came from Andhra Pradesh. In the 15th Lok Sabha, it has 208 seats, of which 33 are from the state. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it was because of the party’s performance in Andhra Pradesh that the United Progressive Alliance managed to form a coalition government.
Not only is the man responsible for delivering those seats dead, but his son is also canvassing votes in the name of his father’s legacy. How will his appeal play out for the Congress?
K Kesava Rao, Congress leader and former Andhra Pradesh party unit president, says things could have been worse if, as the party feared, Jaganmohan had stayed with the Congress and destroyed it from within. In the Legislative Assembly, the party has a majority of just nine. The state government would probably have fallen and, if Reddy had not been in such a hurry, he could have damaged the party comprehensively.
Rao says the party needn’t worry about Jaganmohan now. “Yes, he is likely to return to the Lok Sabha from Kadapa. He has money, and public sympathy will not be hard to invoke. Winning back his own seat will be easy; not forming a party,” Rao adds.
Rao says the bigger worry is Telangana, the region represented by 17 MPs, which is agitating to secede from Andhra Pradesh. The government had set up a commission headed by former Justice B N Srikrishna to consider the issue. It is slated to give its report at the end of December. The Congress says it is not the contents that are important, but that the very mention of a separate state evokes strong sentiments.
The good news is that Jaganmohan will get very little traction from the Telangana issue. His single-point political appeal is his father’s legacy and his father had made it publicly clear that he was opposed to the division of Andhra Pradesh.