What’s Going To Be Their Fate After By-Polls?

The by-elections to Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula assembly seats, scheduled to be held on May 8, are not like any other by-elections.

Whether one agrees or not, these by-elections are going to decide the destiny of the major political parties in the state in the coming days. And this exactly why the Congress high command is taking the elections so seriously and pulling all the stops.

Let us analyse what the fate of the three major players in the state politics after the by-elections.

Y S Jaganmohan Reddy: It is going to be a do or die battle for Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, former Kadapa MP and president of YSR Congress party. After coming out of the Congress, he has claimed the political legacy of his father late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and he has to prove to the people that he is the legitimate successor of his father’s throne.

Whether his mother Vijayalakshmi wins or loses the Pulivendula assembly seat, he has to win Kadapa Lok Sabha seat at any cost by a bigger margin.

He knows that if he loses his seat, his political career is finished, as the ruling Congress will go all out to crush him both politically as well as financially. He will have no other option but to compromise with the Congress party and return to its fold, if not immediately but at least by the next general elections.

If he wins with a huge majority, there will be no looking back for him. He will go aggressively and definitely split the Congress party by attracting a large number of MLAs. And he will expand his party to all parts of the state and emerge as a potential threat to all the political parties.

But if he wins with a lesser majority, he might not get the kind of support he is expecting from the MLAs. The Congress would claim a moral victory and will step up the witch-hunting against him. He needs to work hard to build up the party in the next three years.

N Kiran Kumar Reddy: A defeat of the Congress candidate in Kadapa by-elections is going to be the nemesis for Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy. Though he may try to wash off his hands saying it was like any other by-election and that he cannot be blamed for the party’s defeat, it is certain that the Congress high command would account the defeat in the list of flops of Kiran.

However, he might not be removed from the post immediately, as it would expose the weakness of the Congress high command itself. But, there is every possibility that Kiran’s government would collapse on its own, as many of the Congress MLAs, hitherto supporting Jaganmohan Reddy, might desert the Congress and take a plunge into the YSR Congress party. It would lead to the mid-term elections or the Centre might even prefer to impose a President’s Rule.

N Chandrababu Naidu: For the Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu, a defeat in the Kadapa by-elections will not make any difference, as he knows the party is going to lose the polls in any case. However, at the broader side, the defeat would further expose his poor leadership abilities.

However, if the TDP can increase its voting percentage or gets a second position in Kadapa, Naidu’s image will definitely go up and it will help him move more confidently towards the 2014 general elections. Who knows, the TDP might even spring a surprise in the next elections with the Congress rank and file divided between the Jagan and Kiran camps!