Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, the head of the YSR Congress, bowled a googly at the Opposition when he listed 12 commoners ranging from farmers to an auto driver as his party’s star campaigners for the twin elections for the Assembly and Lok Sabha that his state is priming up for.
“My star campaigners are the people of Andhra Pradesh,” he declared after submitting the list of 12 to the Election Commission.
Little did his rivals, the NDA alliance comprising the Telugu Desam Party, BJP and Jana Sena, or the Congress led by his estranged sister Y.S. Sharmila, expect such a spin from Jagan ‘Garu’ (Garu being an honorific in Telugu) on the poll pitch.
Of course, whether the 12 commoners would be able to deliver the goods for Jagan is quite another matter. But the fact remains that Jagan did send across a message that he would continue to bank on his publicised welfare schemes, which the BJP has often dismissed as “freebies.”
The YSR Congress manifesto promises to carry on all welfare projects, and even improve on many of them with more social welfare pension, educational assistance, financial assistance to farmers, enhancing the free housing scheme, interest-free loans for women, insurance to gig workers among others.
The YSR Congress registered a thumping win in 2019 by winning 151 of the 175 Assembly seats, unseating the Telugu Desam Party of Nara Chandrababu Naidu that could muster a mere 23 seats and Jana Sena Party’s Pawan Kalyan, which bagged just
one seat.
Neither the Congress nor the BJP left any mark on the state.
They also swept the Lok Sabha polls, winning 22 of 25 seats, leaving just the three
to the TDP.
Once a force to reckon with in undivided Andhra Pradesh as well as in the new state, Naidu’s TDP had won 102 seats in the 2014 state polls when YSR Congress proved its mettle by winning 67 seats. The BJP had won four, Congress and regional Navodayam Party won one each in that election.
In 2014, the TDP-BJP combine had won 17 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats, 15 of them going to the TDP. YSR Congress had to be content with eight seats.
But the 2019 debacle had dimmed the fortunes of Naidu, the once-popular architect of Cyberabad — thus named when he gave Bengaluru a run for its money by transforming Hyderabad into a world-class tech hub.
Not much time left to carve out a political future for his son Nara Lokesh who lost in his debut election in 2019 for the state Assembly, Naidu, who turned 74 on April 20, is well aware of the importance of the upcoming polls.
Similarly, Kalyan, younger brother of actor Chiranjeevi, has been trying hard to build his political career.
The TDP is contesting from 144 Assembly seats and 17 Lok Sabha constituencies, while the BJP has fielded its candidates in 10 and six, and Jana Sena in 21 and two, respectively, in their seat-sharing arrangement.
His sister, Sharmila, is seeking votes in the name of their father, former chief minister YS Rajashekara Reddy, after whom Jagan named his party. YSR, then the sitting chief minister, died tragically in a helicopter crash on September 2, 2009.
“Please support me as you supported my father,” Sharmila has been saying at election meetings and road shows. Faced with an uphill task against her formidable brother, and the NDA that is arguably the main challenger, not even the most optimist of Congress supporters would be ready to predict anything more than a few seats for her.
The TDP and Jana Sena have essentially repackaged the Congress guarantees in Telangana and Karnataka to launch “Super Six” — a bouquet that offers free bus rides to women, three free LPG cylinders to the poor each year, a girl child fund of ₹18,000 per year at the rate of ₹1,500 for each girl child over 18 years of age in every poor family, monthly unemployment allowance of ₹3,000 each, free water connections and annual educational assistance of ₹15,000 to each child.
Their manifesto also offers ₹1 lakh as Haj allowance for Muslims and a monthly honorarium to clerics, and an allowance to Christians for visiting Jerusalem.
All this when, their partner BJP ridicules welfare schemes by rival governments as “freebies”.
Andhra Pradesh votes on May 13
