The systematic pursuing of cases against YSR Congress
leader Jaganmohan Reddy, followed by the just concluded three-day
intensive grilling by the CBI — which received wall to wall coverage on
Telugu channels — has already set the stage for a groundswell of
sympathy for him. His arrest on Sunday evening and the announcement that
his mother Vijayamma — widow of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy,
who died in a helicopter crash in 2009 — will take charge from Monday of
the campaign for the coming by-elections to one Lok Sabha seat and 18
Assembly constituencies can only add to the highly surcharged atmosphere
in Andhra Pradesh. Already, the entire State is in a state of high
alert, while the capital Hyderabad has been heavily barricaded to
prevent a possible breakdown of law and order, arising out of rival
shows of strength by Jagan loyalists and Congress supporters.
Why was Mr. Reddy arrested? A senior Congress functionary told
The Hindu
that the situation had so spun out of control that it “did not have any
political strategy” for the State, but that “the decision that Jagan
would have to be arrested was taken a while ago.” The logic is that as
the Congress has very low expectations of performing well in the June 12
polls, it should focus instead on keeping its flock together: the
arrest of Mr. Reddy, it is felt, will deter Congress MLAs and Ministers
sympathetic to his cause from following him out of the party, and
prevent the collapse of the Kiran Kumar Reddy government. It will also
give the government, the Congress feels, time to dismantle Mr.
Jaganmohan Reddy's empire. The Congress' current limited objective is to
keep its government in Andhra Pradesh intact till 2014, when both the
State and general elections will be held, in the hope that it can
recover some ground by then. An indication that the party feels the
situation in the State is hopeless for it, Congress sources said, is
that the general secretary in charge of A.P., Union Health Minister
Ghulam Nabi Azad, has been focussing his energies on the other State he
is in charge of — Jammu and Kashmir.
But the
Congress' political opponents are pointing out that if Mr. Reddy misused
his position when his father was Chief Minister to amass wealth
disproportionate to his means, so had many other YSR loyalists, now in
the Congress, with some in the present State government. The logical
follow-up to the arrest of Mr. Reddy will be the interrogation by the
CBI — and the possible arrest — of these others.
Apart
from that, if the YSR Congress sweeps the June 12 by-polls — as it may
well do — it could lead to an exodus from the Congress to it, as
Congressmen position themselves for 2014 by switching to the winning
side. In 2009, the Congress won a whopping 33 Lok Sabha seats from the
State; now, the party is fighting on two fronts — one trying to stem the
growing popularity of the YSR Congress, largely in the Andhra region,
and the other, figuring out how to dampen the agitation in Telangana.
The
only trick the Congress has up its sleeve is the fact it got actor —
and Kapu leader — Chiranjeevi to merge his party, Praja Rajyam Party,
with the Congress recently. Congress sources say Chiranjeevi is likely
to be included in the Union Cabinet when the next reshuffle takes place.
That may be a signal to the Kapus, but what of the Reddys, the mainstay
of the Congress? For the Congress, there are troubled times ahead in
the beleaguered State.
No comments:
Post a Comment