Epaper
The two major events spiced up the political situation in Andhra Pradesh in the last week: the conclusion of 18-day long Odarpu Yatra of Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy culminating in a massive public meeting at Kakinada in East Godavari district; and the second, the by-elections to 12 assembly seats in Telangana region, results of which are all set to transform the political scenario in the state.
Let us come to the second event first: the by-elections in Telangana on July 27 and their astounding results on July 30. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi has swept the bypolls, recording thumping victory in all the 11 constituencies it had contested, while Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Y Lakshminarayana trounced Pradesh Congress Committee president D Srinivas in Nizamabad urban constituency shattering the latterâs dream of becoming deputy chief minister immediately and chief minister at a later stage.
And the margin of victories recorded by the winning candidates was mind-boggling. At least three of the TRS candidates broke the earlier record set by former chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in securing the highest majority. TRS candidate from Siddipet T Harish Rao registered an unprecedented victory margin of 95,858 votes. Though not many of them have the actual capacity of securing such a huge margin, it is pretty evident that the mandate reflected the strong Telangana sentiment among the people of the region who voted with vengeance to express their desire for separate statehood.
Though it is a loss of face for the Congress party, which entered into the electoral fray with the slogan of âTelangana icchedee memey, techchedee memeyâ (only Congress can get and give Telangana), it is the Telugu Desam Party which had to face humiliating defeat: its candidates lost deposits in 10 constituencies. In some places, the votes polled by the TDP candidates were much less than that of independent candidates.
The election results will boost up the demand for separate statehood further; and the Congress MPs from the region are bracing up to mount pressure on the Congress high command to grant Telangana state much before December. The Seemandhra Congress leaders are obviously on the defensive.
The tragic end to the victory celebrations of the Telangana protagonists, however, was the suicide by an engineering college student Ishan Reddy at Osmania University campus in the early hours of Saturday, as an obeisance to the God for ensuring victory of Telangana candidates.
Coming to the conclusion of Odarpu Yatra of Jaganmohan Reddy, it is pretty evident that he has made up his mind to get out of the Congress; but the question is when it would happen. Jagan is playing his cards close to his chest, but the cleverly chosen statements he made at the Kakinada meeting revealed his game plan to some extent. Particularly his comment that he was running out of patience on seeing injustice being meted out to his followers like Ambati Rambabu and Konda Surekha, indicates that the real injustice was meted out to Jagan himself.
He managed to put up a big show all through the Odarpu Yatra and on the concluding day, as many as 28 MLAs and five MLCs could come to his support and many more had extended him moral support. If all these MLAs continue to support him even after he comes out of the party, it will spell doom for the Rosaiah government. Amen!
