Target-175 in 2024: Andhra's Jagan launching voter outreach campaigns

With the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections just over a year away, Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy is kicking off public outreach campaigns to ensure his reelection.

The YSRCP chief had stormed to power in May 2019 winning 151 seats out of a total of 175 in the Andhra Pradesh assembly and trouncing the opposition TDP to its lowest-ever tally of 23 MLAs.

This time, Jagan, as the CM is popularly referred to in the state, has set an ambitious target of winning all 175 segments.

Under the nine-day long ‘Jagananna-ye maa bhavishyathu” (Jagan is our future) campaign beginning on 18 March, 5.65 lakh party secretariat convenors and Gruha-sarathis (households in-charges) are asked to visit the 1.65 crore households across the state. Going door-to-door, they will spend time sitting with families and explaining all the welfare programmes being implemented by the YSRCP government.

Jagan is betting big on his welfare-centric governance, even as the opposition TDP accuses him of “failing the state on the industrial, investment and development front.”

The social welfare monthly pensions were hiked to Rs 2750, Amma-vodi hands annual monetary incentive to poor women sending their kids to schools, YSR Cheyutha provides financial assistance to the SC, ST, BC, and minorities women for economic empowerment, Jagananna Thodu gives interest-free Rs 10,000 loan to petty traders, artisans and so on.

The YSRCP claims to have fulfilled over 95 per cent of the 2019 election manifesto assurances, “and implementing them in a transparent manner, unlike the previous Chandrababu Naidu regime.”

“However, the opposition and its favourable media are trying to hoodwink the public and denigrate our government image for political gains,” Jagan, sources said, told his MLAs, ministers, party's regional coordinators and district unit presidents in a campaign preparatory meeting held on Monday. “Our party cadre must meet all the people, explaining the facts, our good deeds in welfare and development.”

The Jagan administration is also preparing for the launch of 'Jagananna ku Chebudam' (Let's tell Jagan), aimed at resolving people’s grievances, quickly and to their satisfaction, related to Revenue, Panchayati Raj, Municipal, Home, Health and Family Welfare etc departments.

In May last year, around the time Jagan completed three years in office, a mass contact programme called Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutavam (Our government to every doorstep), was begun with MLAs at the forefront. The YSRCP legislators have so far completed Gadapa Gadapaku in 7447 village/ward secretariats, each one covering six secretariats in a month on average.

Jagan asked his MLAs to participate in the training camps for the party secretariat convenors and Gruha-sarathis in order to motivate them for ‘Jagananna-ye maa bhavishyathu” campaign.