Hyderabad: The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) has announced that it will boycott the budget session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly which began on Monday (November 11).
In a press conference, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, former chief minister and president of the YSRCP, justified the decision, saying that the participation of their 11 MLAs would be futile. Reddy argued that the refusal of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to accord them the status of an official opposition effectively silences their voices in the assembly proceedings.
Under assembly rules, a party must hold at least 10% of the total 175 seats to be formally recognised as the opposition. The YSRCP, with its diminished representation, falls short of this requirement.
“The NDA government does not want the opposition to address public issues or participate meaningfully,” Reddy said. “Without recognition as the opposition, our MLAs are granted only two minutes each to speak – far from sufficient to raise significant issues. Furthermore, with the upcoming Graduate MLC election and the current environment unsuited for a fair session, we have decided to abstain.”
This has happened before
The YSRCP’s decision to boycott is not without precedent. In December 2015, while in opposition, the party walked out after then-Speaker Kodela Siva Prasada Rao refused to lift the suspension of MLA R.K. Roja and denied a request for further debate on the call money scandal.
Such strategies are not new in Andhra Pradesh’s political landscape. In November 2021, then-leader of opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu vowed he would not return to the Assembly until he became chief minister again, citing personal attacks and alleged slander against his family, which he claimed were orchestrated by Reddy.
“Boycotts have long been a political tool employed by parties for various reasons,” said G. Rohit, state secretary of the Human Rights Forum (HRF) Andhra Pradesh, in a conversation with The Wire. “Both major parties have resorted to such tactics. Interestingly, in 2021, despite Naidu’s vow to return to the assembly only after reclaiming the chief minister’s position, his party’s legislators continued to attend subsequent sessions.”
What stands out about the YSRCP’s latest move is the rationale, Rohit pointed out. “Legislators are elected to represent their constituents, regardless of their party’s strength in the Assembly. The DMK, despite winning only seven seats in the 1991 Tamil Nadu assembly elections, and the AIADMK, with just four seats in 1996, did not boycott. This makes the current YSRCP stance unprecedented and particularly unusual.”
‘Relegated to the left…’
Rohit hinted at a deeper, more personal motivation behind the boycott.
“The YSRCP’s trajectory is telling: they secured 67 seats in 2014, surged to 151, and now find themselves with only 11. This session would be the first time Jagan enters the assembly as an ordinary MLA, without the privileges of chief minister or opposition leader status. He would be relegated to the left side of the speaker’s seat, reserved for members, rather than the right, traditionally occupied by the CM and the opposition leader. Given Jagan’s feudal background and the fact that his father was the ex-chief minister, he might be feeling slighted more than fearing ridicule from ruling party legislators.”
Meanwhile, Jagan’s sister and Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president Y.S. Sharmila, who is in the midst of a property dispute with her brother, called for the resignation of all 11 YSRCP MLAs if they lack the “boldness” to attend the upcoming assembly session. “Whether it’s Jagan Mohan Reddy, his MLAs, or YSRCP leaders, if they do not have the boldness to go to the assembly, they should resign,” Sharmila declared at a Congress event in Machilipatnam, Krishna district.
