Rebellion is not new to the Indian National Congress, nor indeed to party president Sonia Gandhi. Once a famous rebel, Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar is now an ally! So, the Congress party need not be rattled by the revolt of Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, Congress member of Parliament from Andhra Pradesh, son of former chief minister the late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, now also a media baron and businessman. The young man is at once gripped by a sense of injustice and vaulting ambition. He cannot understand why he must be denied his political inheritance when the entire project of the Congress party is to facilitate Rahul Gandhi to secure his! It is an understandable grievance. The fact is that the Congress party returned to power in New Delhi in 2004 thanks to the 29 members that Andhra Pradesh sent to the Lok Sabha. In 2009, the state sent as many as 33 MPs to Parliament. Mr Reddy thinks, with some reason, that this was his father’s doing and he must inherit the mandate. The Congress party is not willing to concede the argument. Hence the split.
Whatever the internal quarrels of the Congress party, and there is equal merit in the arguments of both Mr Reddy and the party “high command”, the fact remains that despite handing such an impressive mandate to the Congress Party, in 2004 and 2009, the state of Andhra Pradesh has suffered and continues to suffer. Everyone in the ruling party is a sinner. The late Rajasekhar Reddy himself spoilt his mandate by running an arbitrary and whimsical regime. Delhi kept quiet as long as he served its interests. A combination of populism and cynical manipulation enabled him to return the Congress to power. However, his willful neglect of the Telangana region resurrected a dying agitation. When he died, the Congress party’s backroom boys in New Delhi thought they could do backseat driving by installing a puppet chief minister. Former chief minister Rosaiah is a good man, a long-standing Congress leader, a gentle soul but was out of his depth and was never allowed to gain a personality of his own. His acts of omission and commission, combined with the myopia and incompetence of both party managers and ministers in New Delhi, revived the Telangana agitation and angered the powerful Reddy caste. Perhaps all of this left the “high command” with no option but to try and use a Reddy to tackle a Reddy. Whether the Congress’ latest move will work or not depends on what twist the Telangana issue takes and what alliances Mr Reddy makes with other players in the state like the Telugu Desam Party. All in all, political mismanagement has created a mess in Andhra Pradesh, costing the Congress dear in one of its strongholds.