Jagan: All style, no substance?

Jagan mohan Reddy’s style of campaigning is unique. He blames the government with backtracking on welfare schemes launched by his father, former Chief Minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy (YSR), and accuses the current chief minister, Kiran Reddy, of joining hands with opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu to malign his father. Congress ministers, on the other hand, repeatedly tell voters that it was the Congress party that made YSR grow and Jagan had left the party only to achieve his selfish ends.

District officials are on their toes. There is a ban on banners, posters and stickers related to contesting candidates in the entire constituency. “I had pasted a sticker of Jagan with his election symbol on my ice-cream push cart but local revenue officials removed it. They also seized several bikes which had Jagan's poster,” rues Gul of Chintakunta village in Ravindra Reddy’s Mydukur assembly segment. The officials, however, say they are following the instructions of the Election Commission.

But, is it all worth it? A government official says Kiran Reddy made a mistake by turning the by-election into a spectacular event instead of keeping it a low-key operation, knowing full well that Kadapa pitches for YSR’s family.

“A simple principle tells us that one should not open a battle front in a territory where your enemy is strong. By making this by-election a do-or-die battle, he is making matters difficult for himself and a simple defeat into a spectacular one.” It was the Congress that drove people to believe in Jagan as a credible political successor of his father while failing to own up YSR's popular legacy upfront, he says.

Major surprise
The Congress pulled a major surprise when it successfully brought YS Vivekananda Reddy, younger brother of YSR, into its fold by first making him a minister in the government and now the candidate for Pulivendula pitching against YSR’s wife. People who owe their allegiance to the YSR family in Pulivendula are in a little dilemma as they see no difference between Vijayamma and Vivekananda Reddy. "We have four voters in our family and we want to equally distribute these votes between the two, because both of them belong to us," Laxmamma, who works in a field at Vemula village in Pulivendula constituency says. Baba Vali has sent one of his three brothers to Viveka while showing his loyalty towards Jagan and his mother with the rest of his family in the by-election.

Chinna Gangaiah of Talla Palli village in Vempalle mandal says they will vote for Vivekananda Reddy as he is accessible in times of help to ordinary people like him. A considerable number of men echo the same sentiment though women appear to be more inclined to favouring Vijayamma’s candidature as they are often seen in tears when she greets them as part of her door-to-door canvassing. Yet things are not that simple as it may seem because elections are a different ball game in places like Pulivendula and elsewhere in the Rayalaseema region. Especially in places of dominance by one particular party or a leader, there is no such thing as 'free and fair' election.

According to Laxminarayana, a Congress leader and a follower of Vivekananda Reddy, 70 per cent of voters in Pulivendula, now numbering 32,000, have never gone to polling booth, meaning their votes were rigged by the YSR family. "These people are going to vote for the first time in this by-election. Therefore, it is not going to be a one-sided affair for the YSR family any more," he says while exuding confidence that Vivekananda Reddy would be the winner.

"Viveka always got 4,000-5,000 votes more than his brother in Pulivendula whenever Lok Sabha and Assembly elections were held together. In the 1996 parliamentary polls, YSR won the Kadapa Lok Sabha seat by a margin of just 5,000 votes, that too after counting the rigged votes of three neighbouring villages," he claims while explaining the rationale behind his assessment.

With political parties complaining about possible electoral malpractices, including possible attempts at reducing the polling percentage as alleged by the Jagan camp, election officials are keeping a tight vigil and have made arrangements for live web-casting at all the 1,500 polling booths in the constituency.

The by-election is set to be a turning point for the state. It would either herald the emergence of a new regional party in Andhra Pradesh while shrinking the space for the existing political formations or provide a new lease of life to the Congress and the state government.