The ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh is caught in a Hamletian dilemma on whether or not to demolish the larger than life image of their own former chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy whose son Jagan Reddy has turned a rebel.
It is solely on YSR’s “pro farmer” and “saviour of poor” image that Mr Jaganmohan Reddy summoned the strength to rebel against the Congress and set up the YSR Congress. Even two years after YSR’s tragic death in an air accident, people in the state feel an affection for him.
His son seeks to exploit this sympathy when investigating agencies close in on him over the wealth he illegally amassed since 2004. And it is banking on YSR’s image that the 26 Congress MLAs owing allegiance to Mr Jagan Reddy quit the Congress last Monday in protest against what they described as “the ill-natured move of Congress to slander YSR’s soul”.
It is an open secret that Congress managers made the YSR bête noire and MLA, P. Sankar Rao, file a writ in the high court seeking a CBI probe into awarding of infrastructure and industrial projects during YSR regime which clearly flouted norms.
Sources say that chief minister N. Kirankumar Reddy is of strong view that Mr Jagan Reddy cannot be tackled unless people are made aware of the rampant corruption that took place during YSR’s regime. Yet, the party is afraid of the backlash if it tries to demonise YSR.
Tourism minister V. Vasanth Kumar’s anguish over Mr Jagan Reddy’s allegedly ill-gotten wealth bringing disrepute to his father and PCC president B. Satyanarayana’s comment that YSR was still the beloved of the Congress, bring the party’s dilemma out into the open.
“How can father and son be differentiated?” asks Opposition leader N. Chandrababu Naidu. “The Congress high command remained a mute witness to the plundering of the state by the father-son duo when YSR was alive,” he says.
The Congress also fears that any attempt to sully YSR’s image might make it unpopular, especially in the backdrop of the pruning of welfare schemes. At the same time, it cannot afford to sit idle as Mr Jagan Reddy uses his father’s name to the hilt to further his agenda.