KURNOOL: The huge response to TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu’s recent visit to Kurnool district, has rejuvenated the party rank and file. The party is hopeful of making a comeback in the district where it failed to make a mark in the 2019 elections.
Even TDP senior leaders, including Kotla Surya Prakash Reddy and KE Krishna Murthy, failed to stand before the YSRC wave and the party has been struggling to regain its lost glory for the past three-and-a-half years. Naidu’s visit has, undoubtedly, upped the spirit of the cadre, but it won’t be an easy task to defeat the ruling YSRC, party leaders admit. The YSRC, riding high on a plethora of welfare schemes, is riddled with internal bickerings but the party leadership is hopeful that it will overcome them.
The YSRC won all 14 Assembly seats and the two Lok Sabha seats in the undivided Kurnool district in the 2019 elections. The TDP has been taking up various people’s agitations and programmes to revive the party and keep its flock together in the district but it was Naidu’s recent three-day visit to the district that has brought some hope in the party leadership.
The huge crowds that turned up for Naidu’s roadshows and meetings not just brought some cheers to the party but also left the YSRC a little jittery. The YSRC leadership, days after Naidu’s tour, changed the regional coordinators of the district in an attempt to further tighten the grip of the party in the district giving no chance for the Opposition TDP to revive.
YSRC leaders admitted that there was growing discontent among a few MLAs and other local representatives that the top leadership is not giving priority to them. In the Cabinet rejig this year, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy inducted new faces from the bifurcated new districts but in the erstwhile Kurnool he retained both the ministers Buggana Rajendranath Reddy and Gummanur Jayaram causing heartburn to other MLAs, who aspired for a ministerial berth.
Srisailam MLA Silpa Chakrapani Reddy who aspired a ministerial berth, was reportedly unhappy and the same was the case with Adoni MLA Y Sai Prasad Reddy, Mantralayam MLA Y Balanagi Reddy and Kurnool MLA MA Hafeez Khan, who aspired Cabinet berth under the minority quota. All the YSRC leaders were said to have expressed their dissatisfaction before the senior leaders, sources said.
Meanwhile, some others like Allagadda MLA Brijendra Reddy, Nandyal MLA Silpa Ravichandra Kishore, Banaganapalle MLA Katasani Rami Reddy, Panyam MLA Katasani Rambhupal Reddy, Pathikonda MLA K Sridevi, Yemmiganur MLA Chennakesava Reddy are facing a tough time with opposition from within the party.
When it comes to Yemmiganur, sitting MLA Chennakesava Reddy who is 80 years old, was facing criticism from the public that he is not accessible. The MLA himself had reportedly proposed to the Chief Minister that he wants to give the seat to his son in the next elections.
The reserved constituencies of Nandikotkur in the Nandyal district and Kodumur in the Kurnool district are also facing internal problems and there is a view among the leaders that the party's high command is making little effort to resolve them.
YSRC Kurnool district president and Mayor BY Ramaiah, however, maintained that the party is very strong in the combined Kurnool district and there is no need to panic. “Even if there are some problems in the party internally, they will be sorted out through talks,’’ he asserted.
He said Jagan has focused on developing Kurnool and the entire region and that is why he proposed judicial capital in Kurnool. “The TDP has no place in the district as it has betrayed the aspirations of the people,’’ he added.
The TDP, on the other hand, wants to make use of Rayalaseema development, or the lack of it, as a political plank in the elections. The TDP, according to sources, wants to highlight the lack of industrial development in the run-up to the elections. However, the TDP seems to be gaining strength with the weakening of the ruling YSRC due to its internal politics.
TDP Kurnool district president Somisetty Venkateswarlu said people are with TDP and they have been supporting their party policies. “We are hopeful that the people will elect us in the next elections. People are evidently unhappy with the Jagan Mohan Reddy government and the huge tax burden on them,’’ he said and added that all of them are striving to bring back Naidu as chief minister of the State.