Hyderabad: At least six MPs, one Rajya Sabha member included, have left Jaganmohan Reddy’s Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) in the last few weeks, while a few more are said to be weighing their options ahead of the general elections.
The Lok Sabha polls will be held simultaneously with the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh in April. Most of the desertions came after Jagan denied sitting MPs tickets or changed their seats to rebalance caste and community equations. Jagan is going for a new constituency-wise social engineering “to offset the anti-incumbency” and retain most of the 22 Lok Sabha seats the party won in 2019.
YSRCP is the fourth largest party in the present Lok Sabha, sharing the position with All India Trinamool Congress. However, latest surveys showed a decline in the party’s prospects. India Today‘s Mood of the Nation survey, released in February, gave 17 Lok Sabha seats to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and eight to YSRCP. In 2019, TDP could win only three.
According to political observers, winning a bulk of the AP’s 25 seats is as important to Jagan as retaining power in the state. “It is for his survival,” Professor D.A.R. Subramanyam, chairman of Guntur-based Navyandhra Intellectual Forum, told ThePrint.
The trial in the CBI probe into the disproportionate assets cases against Jagan has lagged since he took over as the CM in May 2019, analysts and detractors point out, while the YSRCP chief has maintained a friendly equation with the BJP-led Centre by supporting some of its initiatives and controversial legislations, including the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019.
“But, at the same time, Jagan has failed to get AP what is due from the Centre — special category status, Polavaram (irrigation project) funds, grants for backward areas, etc., to name some. TDP has also been largely mum as its government had failed to get the bifurcation time promises fulfilled. But YS Sharmila has been vocal, cornering her brother on these issues,” Subramanyam said.
Since she took over as the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) chief in January, Sharmila, Jagan’s younger sister, has been reminding the public of Jagan’s 2019 promise of “bending the Centre’s neck to get AP its rights” once YSRCP is voted to power and gets 25 Lok Sabha seats.
“While Naidu, then a BJP ally, compromised with a special financial package and jailed those protesting for SCS (special category status), Jagan anna, since 2019, has been only enjoying power, neglecting his assurances to get SCS. Forget protests in Delhi, he never even raised his voice to question the Centre in the matter,” Sharmila said Monday at the Anantapuram Congress rally, which Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge also attended.
She also mentioned the 2014 bifurcation time assurances of railway zones, steel plants, etc., of the state.
“Hence, Jagan wants to counterbalance the anti-incumbency with changes and replacements in some Lok Sabha seats. This has naturally miffed the sitting MPs keen to recontest from the same place, like Narasaraopet MP Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, who left the party (in January),” said Subramanyam.
Also Read: How Sharmila’s entry into Congress fold may upset Jagan’s electoral arithmetic in Andhra
‘Don’t know what my political future is’
While Lavu joined the TDP Saturday in the presence of Chandrababu Naidu at a rally in Palnadu, the latest to desert Jagan is Ongole MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy.
On Wednesday, the senior leader, speaking to reporters in Ongole, said he resigned from the YSRCP “as he cannot continue there without self-respect”. The MP said his son Raghava would be in the fray this time. The buzz is that he will contest on a TDP ticket.
“I would not like to comment further,” Magunta told ThePrint Thursday when asked for clarity.
Magunta’s name had cropped up in the CBI and ED probe of the Delhi excise policy scam case and the MP was summoned for questioning by the ED last March. His son Raghav was arrested for the money laundering aspect of the alleged scam. A Delhi court allowed Raghava to turn approver in the case.
Magunta exited as Jagan Wednesday announced Chandragiri MLA Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy as Ongole MP candidate.
In another setback, YSRCP Rajya Sabha member Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy, earlier made the party’s Nellore district chief and seen as the likely Nellore Lok Sabha candidate, quit the party and joined TDP in Naidu’s presence Saturday in Nellore.
Vemireddy said he would be the TDP Nellore Lok Sabha candidate.
Machilipatnam MP Vallabhaneni Balashowry, considered a close aide of Jagan and often accompanying the CM on his New Delhi trips, joined the Jana Sena Party (JSP) of Pawan Kalyan in February. He will likely contest this election on a JSP ticket.
Kurnool YSRCP MP Sanjeev Kumar left the party in January after being denied a ticket from his seat.
K. Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, “the YSRCP rebel MP” from Narsapuram over the last five years, finally quit the party earlier this week. After a series of disagreements, altercations and statements, which often troubled or embarrassed the party, Raju sent a letter to Jagan likening him to “Mahmud Ghazni for the multiple but unsuccessful attempts to get him disqualified as MP”.
Last year, Raju petitioned the Supreme Court to transfer Jagan’s disproportionate assets case trial outside Telangana, alleging delay. The YSRCP chief, arrested in May 2012, has been out on bail since September 2013. In 2021, Raju approached the CBI court in Hyderabad to cancel Jagan’s bail. Raju, reportedly, also sought the SC to cancel the bail, following which the court, in November, served notices to Jagan, CBI.
For some time now, Raju, Narasapuram MP, has been supporting Naidu and JSP’s Pawan Kalyan in his talks and moving in their circles.
Speaking to ThePrint, a YSRCP MP from the Rayalaseema region said someone else will get his seat, too, “as part of Jagan’s caste-social engineering calculations”.
“I don’t know yet where I would contest the Lok Sabha or assembly election from or if I am required as a candidate this time. I don’t know what my political future is. I am waiting for a call (from the CMO),” the MP said.
Local reports said a sitting MP from the Uttarandhra region is also likely to be denied the YSRCP ticket.
Jagan has been trying to quell the dissent, assuring those denied tickets a good future when taking such unsavoury decisions in the party’s best interests, said a YSRCP campaign manager.
“Jagan, party leaders explain the reasons, but some chose to leave anyway,” said the source, working closely with the CMO.
However, YSRCP is not the only party faced with its sitting MPs’ fury. Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas joined Jagan after being denied the TDP ticket.
In another story, Guntur TDP MP Galla Jayadev of the reputed battery maker Amara Raja Group February announced “his leave from politics to focus on family’s business affairs”.
In his “farewell speech” during the debate on the President’s address in the Lok Sabha, the two-time MP called out “the weaponization of government agencies” and said it is not easy to sail in two boats, i.e., politics and business.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also Read: How Andhra CM Jagan & rival Naidu are trying to get divinity on their side ahead of assembly polls