From the Odarpu Yatra (Consoling tour) in 2010 to the Vijaya Yatra (Victory March) in May 2019, the political journey and rise to power of the 46-year-old YS Jaganmohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh is a tale of grit, determination and unstinted hard work.
Under a decade, not only has he built a political party walking away from the parent Cong(I), leading which his father YS Rajasekhara Reddy won twice as Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh, but has won the trust of 5 crore people of Andhra Pradesh scoring a spectacular victory over the veteran Chandrababu Naidu.
With the thumping victory in both the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections, YS Jagan has demonstrated the virtues of knowing the pulse of the people, their aspirations and building a strong grassroots cadre. Enroute this triumph, he has derived goodwill from his father’s popular schemes such as ‘Arogyasri’ and education support to youth. In effect, he has done better than YSR, who won 185 seats in 2004.
Jagan’s serious tryst with politics began on April 9, 2010. Still with the Congress he set out on the Odarpu Yatra to console the families of those who died of shock or gave up their lives following YSR’s untimely demise on September 2, 2009.
In November 2010, after all attempts to get his due failed, Jagan resolved to bid adieu to the Congress party, resigned from his Kadapa Parliamentary constituency and also from the Pulivendula Assembly constituency later. In March 2011, he established the YSR Congress Party and announced its presence in style by winning the by-election in Kadapa, with a record majority of 5.45 lakh votes.
His repeated mass contact programmes through rallies, visits to villages and finally, the record-breaking 3,600 km walk (Praja Sankalpa Yatra) in 340 days, interacting with a crore people during 2018-19 and in between reporting to the special CBI Courts every Friday fighting cases of `quid pro quo’, in which corporates, friends and bureacrats were involved, have in the final reckoning yielded rich results.
Jagan has been a one man army as his election slogans too reflected—Jagan Anna vasthunnadu or Jagan Ane Nenu. He focused and spent all his energy and time on the State formed out of bifurcation of AP in 2014, even as his bitter rival Naidu was promising and selling big dreams to the people, talking and travelling globally to attract investments.
The young leader hailing from Pulivendula in Kadapa district, will have age on his side as he gets ready to take on the reigns of the administering in the State.
A major challenge that Jagan has to overcome is the long list of cases pending against him in courts.
In addition, he has to “shed the image of brashness and dictatorial attitude’ projected by his opponents.
That the electorate has overlooked these charges and gave him a huge mandate could well serve as a big confidence booster. He will have to strengthen the relationship with the Modi government at the Centre to serve the State’s interest. Jagan has taken the right steps with an unwritten political understanding at present.
That Modi personally called him to congratulate and the BJP President, Amit Shah from a public meeting in Delhi, augurs well for him.
His leadership skills and vision will come under scrutiny immediately as Jagan will have to handle the mega capital project of Amaravati (a pet project of Naidu, which Jagan’s party opposed and criticised).