Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, founder of the YSR Congress and son of former chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR), has created a record in the electoral history of Andhra Pradesh. He retained the Lok Sabha seat of Kadapa, which he had won in 2009 on a Congress ticket, by defeating the rival Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidates with a margin of 543,053 votes in a by-election.
The victory margin surpasses the earlier record win by 500,000 votes of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, when he got elected from Nandyal in a by-election in 1991.
As predicted by poll surveys, Jagan’s mother, Vijayamma, also retained the Pulivendula assembly segment defeating her nearest Congress rival, her own brother-in-law, Y S Vivekananda Reddy, the state’s agriculture minister, by 85,191 votes. Both elections were necessitated by mother and son quitting the party and their seats last November, later forming their breakaway party.
Jagan got a total of 6,87,068 votes, while his nearest Congress rival and state health minister, D L Ravindra Reddy, secured 1,44,015 votes. TDP candidate and Rajya Sabha member, M V Mysoora Reddy, secured 1,27,183 votes. Both the Congress and TDP candidates lost their deposits.
Of the 13,29,000 eligible voters in the constituency, 10,28,000 exercised their franchise.
Vijayamma got 114,039 votes out of a total of 156,276 votes polled in Pulivendula, while her Congress rival secured 28,848 votes. Even in this election, the TDP candidate, who got 12,051 votes, lost his deposit.
After YSR’s death in a helicopter crash in September 2009, Vijayamma was elected unopposed to the Assembly from Pulivendula, the seat he had held. However, both mother and son differed with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and quit the party and also resigned from Parliament and Assembly.
TEST PASSED
The landslide victory of both candidates is the first test of strength for the YSR Congress party, floated by Jagan this March.
With Jagan terming the elections a contest between the late YSR and Sonia Gandhi, the ruling Congress in the state had left no stone unturned to ensure the defeat of mother and son. Nearly half of the members of the Cabinet camped at Kadapa for the past fortnight, campaigning for their party’s candidate.
Their star campaigner, filmstar-turned-politician K Chiranjeevi, and chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had also toured the constituency extensively.
The sympathy wave for the mother and son in Kadapa, their family stronghold, was so evident that several leaders of the Congress conceded defeat immediately after completion of polling. They, however, seemed to have not anticipated such a humiliating defeat of their party candidates. They accused Jagan of using money to win over voters.
The TDP also deployed all its political resources to ensure Jagan’s defeat. Its electoral battle, however, was more centred around retaining its support base.
The overwhelming victory of the YSR Congress candidates in the by-elections is expected to have its repercussions on the state political scenario in future. Jagan had already charted an agitational programme against the state government, as a part of which he would be holding a two-day Rythu Sadassu (farmers conference) from May 15 to press for better prices for agricultural produce.
