Following the humiliating defeat in the recent Andhra Pradesh polls, YSRCP chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy may lie low for a year at least, and rebuilding the party should be his priority, political observers in the state opine.
Considering the mere 11 Assembly seats YSRCP (Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party) won, V Anji Reddy, a political analyst, noted that Jagan Mohan Reddy may not even get the Leader of Opposition status in the Legislative Assembly, compelling the party from taking an aggressive posture right away.
The National Democratic Alliance of Telugu Desam Party, Bharatiya Janata Party and Jana Sena routed YSRCP, winning a brute majority of 164 Assembly and 21 Lok Sabha seats in the just concluded 2024 polls. YSRCP won just four Lok Sabha seats.
“He (Jagan) has to build the party again. There is no party organisation. YSRCP has no structure at the grassroots level. The party doesn’t even have a higher level. Have you ever seen the party having a political executive? Has it ever met? Does the party have any organisational structure at the district, mandal and village levels,” Anji Reddy told the media.
Pointing out that Jagan Mohan Reddy had made himself inaccessible to his own MLAs over the past five years, Anji Reddy termed this area as an utter failure, which worked to his detriment and angered the MLAs.
On Wednesday, YSRCP leader J Raja, who lost his Rajanagaram Assembly seat to Jana Sena’s B Balaramakrishna with a margin of 34,049 votes held some officials and party leaders of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s CMO responsible for the disconnect.
This impression of CM being inaccessible to MLAs has also permeated to the village level, compelling the legislators to openly admit their predicament and thereby depriving Jagan Mohan Reddy from understanding the pulse of the people, said Anji Reddy.
Further, he highlighted that the YSRCP chief’s unsuspecting complete reliance on his own image and personality as a rallying point for people to vote for his government was another major folly.
“So, he (Jagan) thought that without the MLAs and without other political leadership people will vote in favour of YSRCP on the basis of his image itself. That is the kind of arrogance he had. MLAs were immaterial,” Anji Reddy noted.
It was also pointed out by a couple of YSRCP leaders that the human touch-lacking direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes, and also the volunteer system had wreaked havoc with the party's reach out to the masses.
However, Anji Reddy noted that the YSRCP founder must respect people's verdict and give sufficient time to the prospective chief minister to settle down and fix his 'priorities', and respond when TDP's N Chandrababu Naidu "fails to deliver on his promises".
Reacting to the election results, a flummoxed Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday said he didn't imagine that the results would come in such fashion but vowed that the YSRCP will act as the 'voice for the voiceless'.
Most importantly, Ravi observed, the YSRCP enjoys 11 Rajya Sabha members and four Lok Sabha MPs now, proving him to be of vital importance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi whereas the TDP doesn’t have even a single Rajya Sabha member presently.
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