It would be foolhardy to argue that Mr Jagan Reddy would not have done exceedingly well had there be no CBI factor
On a day the Congress and the UPA have much to celebrate with their presidential nominee all set to walk into Rashtrapati Bhavan, in Andhra Pradesh it is the YSR Congress and its young leader Jagan Mohan Reddy all the way.
The scale of the victory that the YSR Congress has notched in byelections for 15 of the 18 Assembly seats and the lone Parliament seat in the state can leave no one in doubt that a new political force has established itself in Andhra Pradesh, which the Congress has tended to see as its prime political property for some time.
The sweep of Mr Jagan Reddy’s party in the byelections, whose results were announced on Friday, is hardly fortuitous. It was becoming clear in the past year that the young leader of the new party had succeeded in gaining a mass following through his “condolence yatras”, and many Congress MLAs were reading the wind and transferring their loyalties to him.
To that extent the YSR Congress’ roaring win was widely anticipated. Indeed, some had thought the Congress, which presides over the state government, may come in with a zero score. It has managed to do just a little better than that with two wins, which can only be seen as measly. Interestingly, the Telugu Desam Party led by N. Chandrababu Naidu, viewed as something of a state political colossus earlier, returned a blank score. This is likely to damage Mr Naidu’s political credibility for some time to come.
The YSR Congress’ win is both extensive and intense. The latter aspect — characterised by runaway victories in the constituencies it won — may be a consequence of Mr Reddy being questioned by the CBI in a disproportionate assets case and his being in judicial remand during the byelection process. This was clearly viewed by the electorate as political vendetta unleashed by the ruling Congress, from which YSR Congress broke away. But it would be foolhardy to argue that Mr Jagan Reddy would not have done exceedingly well had there be no CBI factor.
It will be injudicious to see YSR Congress’ resounding win as a clean chit to its leader in the corruption case that he faces. That is a matter for the judiciary. But Mr Reddy’s victory does reflect the public mood that the CBI has been selective in moving against the YSR chief, when it has not bothered with corruption allegations against many others in the past.
The Congress government led by Kiran Reddy could be in difficulty should a dozen or so more of its MLAs move to YSR Congress and the governor is obliged to call for a confidence vote. These are testing times for the Congress in its citadel.