Congress attempts to regain lost ground in Andhra Pradesh

The Congress government that came to power in Andhra Pradesh with a clear majority in 2009 is a pale shadow of its former self today. Y S Rajsekhara Reddy (YSR), who had led the party to a second term is no more. The demand for a separate state of Telengana has divided the party right through the middle (17 MLAs have quit). YSR’s son, Jaganmohan Reddy, has become a threat to the Congress, and the party organisation is in a shambles.

Significantly, Andhra Pradesh sends the maximum number of Congress MPs to the Parliament. Finally waking up to the fact that its hold is slackening, the Congress is now taking steps to contain the damage.

 

Most senior Congress leaders point out that the current chief minister, Kiran Kumar Reddy, has not been able assert himself or gain the confidence of his Cabinet. Replacing Konijeti Rosaiah (who took over after of YSR’s death), Reddy’s run-ins with his colleagues — Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Raja Narasimha and APCC president Botcha Satyanarayana — has hampered the party from focusing its attention to tackle the unstable situation in the state.

This has prompted Ghulam Nabi Azad, the AICC incharge of Andhra Pradesh, to set up a co-ordination committee with the PCC chief and senior MP, KS Rao, as a member among others.

Last week, Azad summoned the chief minister and the APCC president, Botcha Satyanarayana, and instructed them to forget their personal agendas and focus on salvaging the situation in the upcoming bypolls in the state.

A senior MP from the state says, “The problem is that there is no clarity among the top leaders, and therefore the party, on either the contentious Telengana issue or Jaganmohan Reddy. This is confusing the party workers. If there is clarity, I am confident that things can still be worked out, otherwise I fear, by 2014 elections, all will be lost.”

Ever since the long simmering Telengana agitation, fanned by the Telengana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), gained momentum in the wake of Home Minister P Chidambaram assuring that a separate state would be set up, the situation has spiralled out of control for the Congress. It was Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party’s merger with Congress that saved the Congress government in Andhra.

Conscious of the fact that assenting to a division of the state would alienate the Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra regions, the party has been wary of biting the bullet.

In what is being perceived as a message to placate the sentiments of the Telengana region, three out of the four vacant Rajya Sabha seats have gone to those from the Telengana region — Renuka Chowdhury from Khammam, R Ananda Bhaskar from Warangal and old-timer Govardhan Reddy, also from the region. Chiranjeevi has bagged the fourth seat.

The Congress’ bungling on the ‘Jagan issue’, according to most political observers, is responsible to a large extent for the current mess that the party finds itself in. With the Congress “seen” to be trashing the YSR legacy, Jaganmohan Reddy has been gaining both public sympathy and popular support.

However, observers also point out tactically that the CBI cases against Jagan, have, in fact, prevented a large number of MLAs from shifting over to the Jagan camp, wary of what Jagan’s fate will be. His party, the YSR Congress, has only two MLAs at present, but the upcoming bypolls could multiply that number several times.

As a Congress MP and long-time worker involved in the organisation of the party puts it, “Compounding the already complex situation in the state is the poor state of the party organisation – the block, district and mandal committees have been stagnant; there is lot of heartburn among the cadres.”

Realising the enormity of the situation, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the AICC incharge has been spending considerable time in Andhra of late. In the past three months he has spent over seven days in Gandhi Bhavan looking into revitalising the party organisation. Sources say Azad has been lending a patient ear to state leaders and at the same time has been ensuring that new committees are set up at all levels, meeting are conducted and the party workers are involved in spreading the word about the initiatives of the state government such as the work being done under the SCs/STs sub-plan.

If Congress sources are to be believed, the party is trying to make amends in the manner that it will henceforth handle the YSR legacy. “What we are now trying to communicate is that YSR’s legacy was not separate from the Congress, what he did was within the Congress. As for Jagan, his is a case of misplaced individual aspiration,” said a senior Congress leader.

The Congress efforts at reclaiming lost ground, could be too little too late, but with both the Assembly and the Parliamentary elections still a full year away, the party is hoping to get its act together and get back to its vintage self.