Kaun Banega AP CM ?

Will the Congress repeat the same feat in Hyderabad as it does in Dehi ?

Now, with funeral fire of late AP chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy dying down, the chorus for his successor is becoming more loud. A lot is being written about the probable choices. But for me, this is the first time in AP congress, the list of state level probable leaders is narrowing down. In one sense this can also be attributed to the functioning style of late CM, as he never ever allowed to emerge a possible challenger with in his own party. He was well experienced about that kind of situation, being dissident, he organized so many camps, agitations against the incumbent chief ministers between 1989 -1994. He was a committed leader with a vision of his own. Along with own personality, the aides surrounded by him, such as KVP Ramachandra Rao, trusted lieutenants such as Rosaiah, ( who became interim chief minister) Botsa Satyanarayana etc, helped him to scuttle down the probable challengers.

One instance is sufficient to understand his style of sidelining the potential enemies from with in. After achieving the life long ambition to become chief minister, he encountered with a problem of accommodating the different fractions in his first cabinet. The major test he met at a time when he has to choose fraction representatives from former Chief minister and the then Lok Sabha MP from Vizag, Nedurumalli Janardhana Reddy. Janardhana Reddy played a game both at center and in the state. First he bargained with YSR for a berth for his wife Rajya Lakshmi. Once he got it confirmed, then started playing with AICC to become central minister. That was the time AICC president realized that the congress government at the centre in 2004 is except not because of AP congress. Keeping that advantage in his side, YSR came up with a formula that who ever is accommodated in his cabinet, need not to be accommodated at the centre. Congress president immediately sprung in to action the firmly told Janardhana Reddy and Venkata Sway, Congress veterans from AP, to stay away from the race. This lead to sudden disappearance of NJR through back gates of AICC office while we were all waiting to catch him for his post meeting reactions. Not only that. YSR skillfully used Panabaka Lakshmi by bringing her in to central government and pitted her against NJR fraction in Nellore politics.

With such skills, he ensured that there won’t be dual power centers in the state. Simultaneously he incorporated the dissident leaders gradually. No congress chief minister refused to relent from the demands of cabinet expansions for years together, except that happened in AP under YSR regime. He choose the postponement of cabinet expansion to see that the dissidence won’t spillover to the streets. Thus he positively, and negatively unified all congress fractions and saw they stood behind him in one voice. Though short, in my memory, I have not seen a congress chief minister of AP lived through his full term with out a single serious challenge. Thus leaving no serious challenger with credible mass base of his own.

This lead to a situation in the post tragic death of YSR, no body questioned AICC’s late night meeting decision to crown Rosaiah as an interim chief minister. The exercise for crowning the fulltime chief minister is on. The LB stadium gathering, the state witnessed, seems with a plan to orchestrate the demand for anointment of YS Jagan as the successor. Here the question rises, whether AICC chooses to replicate the tightly sewed dual power centers formula that is under implementation at the centre for the last 6 years. The actors are looking more or less same. Though politically, Rosaiah is having more experience in the state politics unlike incumbent prime minister Manmohan Sigh, all the time he was and is seen not as a serious contender but a follower, like Manmohan Singh. Emerged from small middle caste, class family, like PM, Rosaiah, used all his political acumen to save YSR on the occasions when he came under sever attack from various quarters from with in and from outside as Sonia is doing in case of Manmohan Singh. This arrangement helps YS Jagan to construct his political personality, own image, prepare ground to play a long innings, as Rahul Gandhi was doing. Though this arrangement gives some operating space to senior congress leaders such as Jaipal Reddy, D. Srinivas, to name a few, as a whole that helps to kept the state unit of the party sewed, united, to save itself from opposition attacks and mass discontentment.