HYDERABAD: The death of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has created a vacuum the ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh will find impossible to fill.
From a young politician, who had always rebelled against Congress chief ministers in the past, in the past decade he emerged as an undisputed leader and the sole hope of the party.
If the massive victory he fashioned in 2004 was an achievement, his success in returning the party to power for a second term, a feat not performed by any other Congress chief minister in the state, made him the most powerful man in Andhra Pradesh.
In Delhi, his clout since becoming the Chief Minister in 2004, kept growing with the passage of time and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had chosen not to pay much attention to what Reddy’s rivals within the party conveyed to her. And, when he gave the party 33 MPs in 2009 paving the way for the smooth formation of a Congress government at the Centre, Sonia couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Reddy's death would pose considerable challenge to the leadership in keeping the party intact in the state. There is virtually no second line leader for the Congress in the state — someone who has the same kind of mass following or stature that Reddy enjoyed among legislators and MPs.
