V Kishore Chandra Deo, Congress MP from Andhra Pradesh, talks to Saubhadra Chatterji about politics in the state and its impact at the Centre
In the last Lok Sabha elections, Andhra Pradesh contributed the largest number of seats to the Congress. But now we see a split in your party led by Jaganmohan Reddy. Political observers believe this is going to be the biggest threat to the party in 2014
I don’t think the prospects of 2014 have anything to do with the Jagan factor. In 2009, Assembly and Parliament elections were held at the same time. The normal trend is that the election at the lower level affects the one at the higher level. That’s why many of us who contest for Parliament are wary of Assembly candidates. But this was probably for the first time that parliamentary elections affected the Assembly polls. Let me start with my own constituency, Araku. After delimitation, it is now spread over four districts. Out of seven Assembly seats that I have, four are from my erstwhile Lok Sabha area. Three Assembly segments are new. I got 150,000 more votes than what the seven Congress candidates together got.
What I am trying to suggest is that we didn’t win Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh because of late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. The victory in 2009 was because of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, because of the farm loan waiver scheme and various other central government initiatives. If Assembly and Lok Sabha elections had not been held together, I am not sure if the party could have returned to power in the state.
You mean to say YSR didn’t help win you so many seats in Andhra Pradesh?
Absolutely, and the figures will tell you. You might say that in Araku, my own charisma might have played a role as I have been in politics for quite some time. But look at other constituencies, do your own calculation and see what percentage of votes Lok Sabha candidates got and what our Assembly candidates got. There are many segments where the Lok Sabha candidate got a lead but the Assembly candidate lost his seat. So, the 2009 elections had nothing to do with the local factors.
Jaganmohan’s exit comes at a time when the Srikrishna Committee is expected to give its report on the Telangana issue in a couple of weeks. While the Congress has been balancing united Andhra and Telangana sentiments, Jaganmohan will have a cause to promote as he, like his father, supports a united Andhra Pradesh
The Jaganmohan factor is being overplayed, especially by the electronic media. You must remember that Jaganmohan came into politics just three months before the elections. You must also remember that before becoming the chief minister, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy spent 10 years in virtual hibernation. It is the party that has made Jaganmohan what he is today and not vice versa. I would like to draw your attention to my state, especially in 1978, when all prominent leaders were with Brahmanand Reddy. He was made the chief minister by Indira Gandhi and I was part of that group. Almost all prominent Reddys, including YSR, were with the Reddy Congress. When the Assembly elections took place, all of us thought J Vengala Rao would form the government and if he failed, it would be a coalition government. What happened? Indira Gandhi’s Congress swept the elections. No one thought the Congress would come to power, but it happened. Remember that Andhra Pradesh has a tradition of voting en mass for a party. In 1977, the Congress got 41 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats. So, winning 33 seats may sound astounding to the Delhi media, but we could have got 40 seats. We got fewer seats because of the shortcomings of the local leadership and the kind of politics it played.
But your party has already shown symptoms of nervousness. You had to remove K Rosaiah and bring in a Reddy chief minister to counter Jaganmohan.
You must remember that Jaganmohan’s rebellion took this shape after the removal of Rosaiah. It was not Jaganmohan who pushed Rosaiah out. It was his non-performance that forced the high command to remove him. Rosaiah failed to assert or govern. It has nothing to do with the Jaganmohan factor. It was inevitable, given the way Rosaiah was performing.
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But Jaganmohan’s supporters say the main issue was you didn’t allow him to undertake the Odarpu Yatra. What’s wrong with a leader trying to reach out to his loyalists and families in a state where people committed suicide after YSR’s death?
There should not have been anything wrong with the Odarpu yatra. But have you seen the videos of the yatra? He doesn’t talk about the Congress party. He only talks about his father and himself. He was taking political mileage out of it. You must remember his father succeeded because of the central support. The amount of resources and help YSR got from the Centre was mind-boggling. Any chief minister would have been successful if he had been given this level of Central help. But this was never conveyed to the people of Andhra Pradesh.
So you are not worried that Jaganmohan will dent the Congress citing YSR’s memory and his good governance?
Not at all. In fact, this whole YSR myth would have exploded if Assembly and Parliament elections had not been held simultaneously.
But with TDP on a downslide and Cheeranjivi’s PRP seen as a flop, Jagan can take the entire Opposition space
I agree that TDP is going down. But has PRP been able to take its position? No. People of Andhra Pradesh are politically sharp and know where each party stands. And frankly, I don’t think there is anything like a space for the opposition. It is nothing but the space the ruling party is ready to yield due to misrule or non-governance. Even if we face elections in 2014 after being in power for 10 years in the state, it is not necessary that the Congress will face a huge anti-incumbency factor. Look at the Congress in the Centre. There was a positive incumbency factor for Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. Look at what has happened in Bihar. Sheila Dikshit came back to Delhi’s secretariat third time in a row. The Left has been ruling West Bengal for 33 years. So, it will depend on how we conduct ourselves.
The Jaganmohan factor is just adverse publicity created by half-a-dozen people in the state. The worst thing for the party will be to fear Jaganmohan and adopt a policy of Reddy appeasement.
YSR was a strong Reddy leader and if you are set to lose Reddy votes, with Kammas preferring TDP and Cheeranjivi wooing the Kapus, how do to retain your vote bank?
If Cheeranjivi has a solid backing of the Kapus, why did he get so few seats? These theories are good to read in newspaper articles but the ground reality is something else. Reddys and Kammas together don’t count for more than 15 per cent of the state’s votes. We had chief ministers like Damodaram Sanjivayya and J Vengala Rao, who were neither Reddys nor Kammas. We also had a Brahmin chief minister, though Brahmins account for hardly two per cent votes. I don’t think this Reddy factor will affect the party. People will not go after caste and communal factors in Andhra Pradesh.