Guntur, Bapatla, Kadapa: Vejendla, about 15 kilometres from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, is a village fiercely polarised along party and caste lines.
Some people have extended their biases to the band of ‘volunteers’ mobilised by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government. The so-called ‘army’ has drawn the ire of the Opposition ahead of the state elections and Lok Sabha polls next month.
A group of Reddys, supporters of the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), gather for their pre-lunch tête-à-tête near the Dr YSR Centre, where a tall statue of the late Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, covered in a white cloth because of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), stands. They are singing praises of CM Jagan’s “novel idea” and the appointment of grama and ward volunteers, which they say, has eased government service, eliminated corruption and brought transparency in scheme delivery.
A kilometre away, a bunch of Kammas, loyalists of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), are huddled behind a turmeric yellow-coloured building, which serves as their community hall and the local TDP office, with a covered N.T. Rama Rao statue at the front. For them, the volunteers are “Jagan’s agents, symbols of YSRCP’s corrupt administration denying them the government benefits”.
With a population of nearly 10,000, Vejendla has 46 volunteers, who are part of a whopping 2.56 lakh-strong organisation formed by the Jagan regime in Andhra Pradesh, soon after coming to power in 2019.
Attached to the 15,425 village/ward sachivalayams (secretariats) set up that year, these volunteers serve the village or the municipal ward where they reside. Each one of them is given the responsibility of a cluster of 50-100 households.
Given the size of its population, Vejendla has two Grama Sachivalayams (village secretariats), one right opposite the YSR statue.
For over four years now, these volunteers have become the access points of the government for all purposes — awareness about programmes, identification of beneficiaries of schemes, like Cheyutha, Amma-vodi and others. They have especially gained recognition for delivering Jagan’s hallmark social welfare pensions — YSR Pension Kanuka — on the first of every month to the people’s doorsteps.
TDP and other Opposition parties say that in addition to their duties, volunteers have become the eyes and ears of the YSRCP in every nook and corner of the state, and that the data they collect for official purposes and the friendly rapport they have developed with the families they aid, are now being used for driving the ruling party to victory.
In fact, several volunteers, including two from Vejendla, were suspended in March for taking part in YSRCP candidates’ meetings, door-to-door campaigns and other activities after the election schedule announcement.
Based on complaints, the Election Commission of India, in the last week of March, virtually shelved the volunteer system for the period of elections, asking them to hand over the apparatus provided by the government, like tabs and smartphones, to the district authorities.
The effects were visible in the first week of April, when about 60 lakh pensioners — old and widowed, tribals from remote areas, etc — had to, after a gap of four and a half years, trudge to the local government offices, and wait in queue to collect their monthly Rs 3,000 in cash.
“I had to wait for three hours under the sun at an office for my pension this month,” said 73-year-old Kota Ramireddy.
The government orders, following ECI instructions, do, however, say that the handicapped and the chronically ill will get their pensions delivered home by the government staff.
Farmer Madanmohan Reddy and others blame opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu for the pensioners’ travails .
“With the volunteer system, there is no need for anyone anymore to visit the government offices. Pensions, certificates like caste, income, were getting delivered at home, without us wasting time or having to pay a bribe. These youngsters were godsent to many uneducated, unaware and ailing people, but Chandrababu and his partners injected unnecessary doubt in the public’s mind about their work,” Madanmohan says, as his neighbour — also a Reddy — adds that the volunteer model should be adopted across the country.
However, TDP loyalists Ravindra Babu and Haribabu Gavini say that the volunteers are biased towards the supporters of the ruling party in terms of allocation of benefits, like housing for the poor.
A Vejendla secretariat official says that there can be no truth to the claim. “Listing of the people eligible for schemes by volunteers and selection of beneficiaries by higher-ups is based on documents furnished, and carried out in a transparent, accountable process,” he said.
Andhra Pradesh goes to polls on 13 May for Lok Sabha and the state assembly simultaneously.
‘Volunteer system an efficacious model’
On an extremely hot day at a Grama Sachivalayam in the fishing harbour village of Nizampatnam in the neighbouring Bapatla district, few staff members are on their lunch break. They say that the volunteer system has proven beneficial in several ways.
“Being locals, these volunteers are well acquainted with their neighbours. Awareness and identification of the needy under a welfare scheme has become quick and easy. Implementation of a new programme used to take three to six months earlier, but now it can be done within 15-30 days. Income and caste certificates are now being issued in a day or two. These used to take one or two weeks,” one of them said.
The village-ward secretariat and volunteer system is also said to have immensely helped the Andhra Pradesh government during the COVID-19 pandemic, assisting the Auxiliary Nurse Midwives, ASHA and other health workers on duty.
But what about the allegations of volunteers siding with the YSRCP and their attempts to influence voters?
“These volunteers are not government employees bound by service rules. We cannot curb their political affiliation or activities. Concerns were raised and some action has been taken as the election code is in place, but the volunteers had been accompanying legislators and leaders as part of the YSRCP government public outreach programmes, like Gadapa-gadapaku mana prabhutvam (government at every doorstep), earlier,” a senior civil servant told ThePrint.
The volunteers are appointed by a mandal, municipality-level panel, mostly on recommendation of YSRCP leaders and legislators without any exam or interview. The volunteer could be a farmer, daily wage earner, private school teacher or a higher education student. They are paid an honorarium Rs 5,000 per month and are required to register attendance at their respective sachivalayam twice a week.
CM Jagan had even introduced awards in recognition of the volunteers’ “selfless service” — Seva Mitra, Seva Ratna and Seva Vajra, with the cash prize hiked this year to Rs 15,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 45,000, respectively. He had described them as brand ambassadors of his welfare schemes and that they should build a positive image about the YSRCP government.
What Jagan’s ‘soldiers’ say
ThePrint interacted with several volunteers in Guntur, Bapatla districts in coastal Andhra, and Kadapa of Rayalaseema, who dismissed any talk of operating as Jagan’s agents or favouring YSRCP supporters in the allocation of government benefits.
Satyanarayana Reddy and Kasi Reddy, two of the 46 volunteers in Vejendla, said that they do not have such power or any scope to favour anyone since their work is “very much public”. People have become very aware nowadays and demand to know why their application is rejected, they added.
Mahendra Bukke, another volunteer in Puttampalli village near Kadapa, said that it is unfair for the Opposition leaders to target them.
“During the pandemic, while delivering food to people in quarantine, I contracted the virus and suffered. We have participated in the government outreach programmes before. We were handing out pamphlets with Jagan’s image to beneficiaries, along with pensions in January informing them about the hiked amounts. But our likes and dislikes aside, we never operated like YSRCP workers,” said Bukke.
Katikala Obaiah, a 32-year-old volunteer in Prakash Nagar in Kadapa town, said that many disappointed volunteers have resigned and are now “campaigning for the YSRCP openly out of vengeance”.
Siva Krishna Reddy in Pittalavanipalem village in Bapatla district is one of the 44,000-plus volunteers who have reportedly resigned following the ECI order barring them from delivering pensions and other work.
A few, however, also agree that their selection and appointment is a result of the fact that they are prominent Jagan/YSRCP supporters in their respective village/municipality.
“So, of course, we speak in favour of YSRCP, sometimes. But who gets influenced by words? There is no guarantee that a welfare pensioner we speak to will certainly vote for Jagan,” said one volunteer to ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Some pensioners, like B. Venkateswaramma, a 50-year-old widow in Muthayapalem near Bapatla, however, admitted that their volunteer last month prodded her to vote for the YSRCP MP and MLA candidates.
Is Jagan’s ‘army’ making the Opposition jittery?
In February, felicitating this year’s awardees, CM Jagan called the volunteers “his young sainyam, his star campaigners”, while asking them to thwart the TDP and allies’ false poll promises. He even applauded them for their efforts in YSRCP victory in various bypolls and local body polls since 2019.
The CM has cautioned the volunteers that Naidu would remove them if he came to power to bring back his “corrupt” Janmabhoomi committees. He continues to mention the army in his election rallies.
Jagan has accused TDP chief Naidu of being responsible for the deaths of over 30 pensioners, who allegedly died because of having to travel and wait in the harsh heat for pension payments, earlier this month.
Sensing the anger among the volunteers and the damage they could do to his poll prospects, political observers say that Naidu has turned jittery. His ally, Pawan Kalyan, had last year also alleged that some volunteers were aiding human trafficking networks with information about women.
So, with the intent of damage control, on the occasion of Ugadi this year, the former CM promised to double volunteers’ honorarium to Rs 10,000 per month, if his party is voted to power.
“Naidu, who opposed the volunteer system and cast aspersions on us, is now promising to double the remuneration. We do not believe him. But it is good to see him realise our importance,” Kasi Reddy, who serves 84 households in Vejendla, said.
Meanwhile, YSRCP minister Dharmana Prasada Rao openly called on the volunteers, who have resigned, to operate as full-time party functionaries.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)