Fence-sitting YSR loyalists await new Jagan party

 
Making the declaration in his home town of Pulivendula in Kadapa, Jaganmohan, who, while quitting the Congress wrote to its president that he would not do anything to destabilise the government of newly-elected Chief Minister K Kiran Kumar Reddy, said he would come up with a name for his party and outline its policies after thorough discussions with supporters.

The political expediency behind such a move stems from the by-elections to the Pulivendula Assembly and Kadapa palriamentary seats which fell vacant after Jaganmohan and Y S R Reddy’s widow Vijayalakshmi resigned as MLA and MP, respectively.

This time, according to political analysts, Jaganmohan will contest the Pulivendula seat as a platform for making a pitch for chief ministership when Assembly polls take place in 2014.

As Jaganmohan launched the mobilisation process, some prominent ministers in the erstwhile YSR and later the K Rosaiah Cabinet said this was an opportune moment for launching a new regional party.

But the AP Congress’s reaction to Jaganmohan’s proposed party was lukewarm. Pointing out that the new outfit will be another addition to a list of existing parties like the Loksatta and the Praja Rajyam Party of Chiranjeevi, State Minister D Nagendra, once a trusted YSR loyalist, said: ”We are the inheritors of the Congress, not YSR”.

The main Opposition TDP on the other hand pointed out that it was the Congress that had mortgaged Telugu pride on the streets of Delhi and YSR was no different.
At the informal meeting with supporters, Jaganmohan said: “By-elections to the Kadapa Lok Sabha seat would be the semi-final while the Assembly polls would be the final. We have to work hard for three years and then there will be good governance for 30 years. Our party flag will fly high over every house across the state.”

While reiterating that he had no plans to destablise the Kiran Kumar Reddy government, Jaganmohan said: “Have no doubt, the Congress will be wiped out in the next three years.”

In a bid to evoke emotions, Jaganmohan said his “tryst with the Congress was over the day my mother returned empty-handed and full of tears from Sonia Gandhi’s house”.

Since his resignation from the Congress and the Lok Sabha on Monday, Jaganmohan has consistently hit upon an emotive issue as part of his mobilisation programme ahead of launching a new party which, some of his supporters said, could be named the Youth Shramik Ryot (YSR) Congress — a clever play on his father’s initials.