Hyderabad: All eyes are on the tussle between Andhra Pradesh Congress president Y. S. Sharmila and sitting MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy for Kadapa Lok Sabha seat as the nominations for phase four parliament and Assembly elections opened in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, April 18.
Not that the murder of former Kadapa MP Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy who was an uncle for both contestants will make any difference to the outcome of the poll as the issue was alive even in last elections in 2019, the high-profile constituency is the home turf for chief minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy where his sister Sharmila has posed a serious challenge to his leadership.
It is also widely believed that the entry of Sharmila sharing with her brother the legacy of their father Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy will eat into the vote bank of Jagan. To compound problems for him, Vivekananda’s daughter Suneetha is also actively campaigning for Sharmila and reminding people how Jagan shielded Avinash Reddy in the murder of her father.
Also read: The Chequered History of Family Politics Over the Kadapa Seat
While Sharmila will be making her electoral debut, Jagan was the Kadapa MP before becoming chief minister. The Telugu Desam Party has fielded C. Bhupesh Reddy in the contest but it is alleged that the party had deliberately picked up a weak contest to help the Congress win.
If the election was not a referendum on Vivekananda’s murder, what else will determine the voters choice is the big question. According to analyst professor K. Nageswar, the choice is determined by political questions. So, the fundamental political question here is whether Jagan should get a
second term in power or Chandrababu Naidu should become chief minister.
Serious contest expected between YSR Congress and TDP
The elections in Andhra Pradesh have thrown up a high element of unpredictability with totally divergent and unbelievable claims of surveys. It was obvious that the surveys could not capture ground reality however scientific the sample was.
The ruling YSR Congress has retained its strong presence in extension of welfare schemes to the poor but, at the same time, there was equal resentment against the government due to lack of development in urban areas and lopsided social engineering for the benefit of SCs, STs, BCs and minorities. The YSR Congress allotted 50% of tickets in the present elections to these sections.
An illustration of the resentment of people towards YSR Congress was the drift of Kapu voters who constituted nearly 20% of the total population to the Jana Sena, an ally of Telugu Desam Party led Opposition.
TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu. Credit: Special arrangement
By ignoring Kapus, especially in allotment of tickets, Jagan was seen as forfeiting advantage to the TDP. For strategic reasons, however, the TDP had also not accommodated Kapus in proportion to their population in tickets distribution. The BJP, the third partner in the Opposition, gave blank to the community.
The political landscape in Andhra Pradesh is governed by three major social groups – Kamma, Kapu and Reddys. The YSR Congress is identified with Reddys, the TDP with Kammas and Jana Sena with Kapus. The chiefs of the three parties represent the respective communities. In this background, Jagan recently roped into his party former minister Mudragada Padmanabham, a veteran Kapu leader who has been fighting for decades for the inclusion of the community among backward classes, to offset the perceived injustice to Kapus.
The Reddys took a lion’s share in the 50% of seats left in YSR Congress after distribution to SCs, STs, BCs and minorities. Similarly, most tickets went to Kammas though their population was only 5% and the Reddys in TDP. The Jana Sena completed the task of harbouring Kapus by giving them tickets for 16 out of 21 Assembly seats and two Lok Sabha seats allotted to the party in the alliance with TDP and BJP.
The alliances envisaged TDP will contest 144 Assembly and 17 Lok Sabha seats, Jana Sena in 21 and 2 seats and BJP in 10 and 6 seats respectively.
Pentapati Pulla Rao, an analyst, said Pawan Kalyan landed on a weak wicket by accepting a mere 21 Assembly seats. The TDP and BJP took advantage of the presence of actor turned politician in Pawan Kalyan.
Pulla Rao also said it was too early to hazard any guess on the fortunes of parties in the elections. By announcing his candidates early, Jagan had committed a tactical error like former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. Rao paid a heavy price in similar situation in 40 to 50 constituencies, he added.
Jagan, however, dropped 14 out of 22 sitting MPs and 37 out of 151 sitting MLAs, something which Chandrasekhar Rao did not experiment in such large numbers. A total of 80 MLAs of YSR Congress were unsettled either by dropping or shifting constituencies. Half of the 22 MPs of the party were also replaced. Six sitting MPs quit YSR Congress after they were denied opportunity. One of them Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy, representing Ongole, who is an accused turned approver in the Delhi liquor policy case was fielded by TDP from the same constituency.
As the battle lines are drawn, YSR Congress had an inherent advantage because of continuous connect of the party and government with common public following the introduction of volunteer system.
The volunteers appointed by the party undertook door delivery of welfare schemes for the poor. They ensured hassle free Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) on a single complaint where they were stationed in villages. Caste and income certificates were persued with government offices and immediately delivered to applicants at home. The volunteers were also involved in the transfer of one cent and twenty five square yards land promised by government to poor.
In other words, the groups comprising YSR Congress activists worked as village secretariats and ran a parallel panchayat raj system where the role of government was diluted.
It became a huge controversy after the YSR Congress planned to deploy the committees in the present elections. The party contemplated using the volunteers as its election agents and also at polling booths as government staff instead of teachers and other lower-level employees.
The Election Commission stopped the groups from working anymore on a complaint by the TDP.
Then, Jagan turned the issue against Chandrababu Naidu making it an election issue saying the poor were denied their pensions because of TDP.
Naidu issued a clarification that he was not against the system but only highlighted its misuse.
Telakapalli Ravi, a well-known editor and writer, said the YSR Congress had gained a head start in elections by its pro-poor measures. Its social engineering in allotment of tickets was effective in the face of problem of plenty faced by the party. The YSR Congress also played the backward classes (BC) card to good use in tickets distribution.
The TDP had almost given up on targeting the poor for votes as the ruling party had taken lead in the matter.
Ravi said both YSR Congress and TDP were focussed on uncertainty over the capital of Andhra Pradesh as election issue. While Naidu committed to continuing Amaravati as the capital, Jagan’s recent announcement that he will seek his swearing in as chief minister at Visakhapatnam after winning elections suggested he did not give up his three capital cities slogan.
Apart from that, he will also have to take the blame for not doing anything for urban middle class and lack of investments.
