Andhra Politics - 02: A visit from the BJP heads to Andhra

 Recently, the current Home Minister of the Indian government, Shri Amit Shah visited the Andhra Pradesh state on 11th June 2023 to address the massive crowd as part of the Jan Sampark Abhiyan in which the BJP supremo along with other national and regional leaders of the party will circulate the brief on the progress they achieved in the last nine years of the Shri Narendra Modi government. The event at Vishakapatnam was aimed to boost the party workers to start the 2024 Lok Sabha and state assembly elections. but it should be understood that the party has a very limited presence in the state and the usual mass winning tools of BJP like the religion and national security card might not shift the voters to the party from the regional powerhouses like the Telugu Desam Party and YSRCP, both have formed their own mass supporters and in a way divided the communities between them. 

The current opposition party of the state led by Shri Chandra Babu Naidu who is the most experienced politician in the country with the longest political participation is backing its support on the BC, Chowdary and to an extent Kappu community vote base while the current ruling party led by the Y S Jagan, Son of late Chief Minister Y S Rjashekhar Reddy had led the party to a highest-ever win in the history of Andhra Pradesh politics with victory in 151 of 175 Assembly seats. The YSRCP party backs itself on the ST and Reddy communities and the unpredictable support of the government scheme beneficiaries who can shift their allegiance based on the poll promises. One of the powerful allies, the YSRCP party has is the partnership with the Indian-Political Action Committee (I-PAC) which is one of the most successful political consultancy in India and a key player behind the electoral victory in the 2019 elections. I-PAC now currently owns a reliable ground network and social media operations to boost a particular candidate and increase the ratings in the constituency and the state. the national parties do have a presence which is if spoken honestly only extended to the massive public meetings and press conferences. Shri Pawan Kalyan-led Janasena Party doesn't pull any particular vote base for the party which can be turned into actionable votes, but has considerable support from the Kapu community and he himself pulls a massive crowd for all the public meetings including the ongoing VARAHE yatra. It is important to note that the upcoming elections might be the last one for Shri CBN Garu of TDP which is why he and his party massively support Nara Lokesh, the heir of CBN Garu as the future chief and is clearly observed in the way the local politicians are welcoming him in his ongoing walking marathon (Padayatra) - Yuva Galam.

We have deviated from our original story and let's link the ongoing political fight in the state with the Shri Amit Shah Ji and the BJP party. The meeting was preceded by BJP supremos like Amit Shah (Home Minister and ex-BJP National President), Nandamuri Purandeshwari Garu (BJP National General Secretary), JP Nadda (BJP National President), Somu Veerraju (BJP Andhra Pradesh President), V Muraleedharan(BJP In-charge of the state and Minister of state for external affairs) and many others like CM Ramesh, Former Chief Ministers Kiran Kumar Reddy, Satya Kumar, PVN Madhav and Vishnu Kumar Raju, the leaders have criticized the ruling YSRCP government and even made personal remarks on the current chief minister Y S Jagan for leading the state to financial ruin and renaming and rebranding the policies of the BJP in the state for publicity. This was not new in political meetings and was expected to attract critics in the revere of the central leaders. Instead, the attack was controlled on the part of YSRCP and none was concentrated on the national leaders instead, the spokespersons of the YSRCP party instead claimed that the local BJP politicians instead are to be blamed for misinforming the senior leaders. this looks as if the YSRCP trying hard not to upset the supremos and if possible try to gain the possibility of an alliance with the party. The TDP almost never criticize the BJP nowadays and the rumours of the political alliance for the 2024 elections are almost spoken by every political literate of the state which has grown wide after the recent visit of Shri CBN Garu with Shri Amit Shah to New Delhi. The Pawan Kalyan-led Janasena Party is an official co-participant of the BJP and almost always syncs with the tone of the BJP. 

The interesting point one must identify is that BJP is the friend of all the political parties in the state which either share a co-productive bond or free the party for its control over the central institutions like the vigilance and ECI. This leaves the BJP only participating in its sole interest to increase its vote base in the state and the regional players fighting to win the allegiance of the party which has almost zero presence in the state. let's understand the current positions of all four political parties in the state in terms of major issues like the three capital and other issues in our next post. 

Andhra Pradesh: Target 2024

 The status report on the Andhra Pradesh political setup on the grounds of upcoming Lok Sabha and state assembly elections which is going to be a deciding factor in navigating the state’s growth either forward or to a forever standstill. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), currently the main opposition in the state assembly enjoys very few powers as the ruling governments enjoys the absolute majority in the assembly to pass the bills introduced without even having a fruitful discussion on the matter. If this raises any bells in the minds of the sound citizenry with a active mind, Yes! The current union government follows the exact form of the governance after securing the absolute majority in the Lok Sabha for the last two consecutive terms and prepping itself for a third term under the current leadership headed by Mr Narendra Modi and supported by the other prominent leaders like Mr Amit Shah and J. P Nadda. The current union party also enjoys the support from the local electorate as it was observed in the all-recent elections where the party if not won, more or less retained its voter base as observed in the recent Karnataka elections. The party also enjoys the support of many promising new leadership candidates like Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia, Mr Himanta Biswa Sharma and many others who are crowd attracting politicians, a skill which is horned by very few. It must be observed and if not doubled underlined to highlight out that the promising leaders are the ones who have migrated from other major opposition parties majorly the Indian National Congress (INC) and other regional players.

The state of Andhra Pradesh with it’s a new state which had loose most of its resources to the Telangana which had bifurcated from the erstwhile United Andhra Pradesh which consist the Telangana along with Rayalaseema and Costal Andhra regions. Telangana region which was part of the princely state of Hyderabad before getting the independence from Nizams and joining with the Indian Union and in the Andhra Pradesh to form the united state housing all the Telugu speaking populations. The Andhra State which has been the first state to form on the basis of language from the Madras state has included the Telangana region later on to form the Andhra Pradesh state. The state of Telangana was formed in the 2013 after a long protest from the different political and non-political sections on the claims that the region hasn’t developed under the united Andhra Pradesh state as they argue that the major resources are invested on the development of coastal Andhra and the Rayalaseema while underwriting the development of the Telangana region. The claims also focus that the political parties are also dominated by the leaders from the other two regions without any popular representation option for the Telangana leaders. The then TDP politician, Mr. K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) who had the experience of working with the supremos like Mr Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao (NTR) and Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu (CBN), had resigned from the TDP and started his own Telangana Rastra Samiti (TRS) with the sole aim of representing the problems of the Telangana region and achieving the separate statehood for the region which he had succeeded in 2013 when the then INC government sanctioned the statehood for the Telangana on June 10, 2013 which had received a mixed responses from different sections of the state as the people of Telangana welcomed the decision while the opposition parties like the YSRCP and TDP opposed it and even went to streets to put forward there arguments. The long “Samaikya Andhra” struggle was finally concluded without receiving any pull back on the decisions, instead the bifurcated Andhra Pradesh state received the financial and development boons from the then union governments with compliances from the then opposition parties like BJP which include the “Special Category Status” and Common Capital for the period of 10 years.

Post the bifurcation, the states have started their own development plans where Telangana started working on redistribution and rearrangements of the benefits to its residents under the leadership of TRS which had won an astounding majority in the assembly of Telangana whereas the state of Andhra Pradesh under the leadership of CBN had won a commanding majority in the state and started it mega plans to construct a new identity and new capital for the state which lost its to the Telangana. This is the brief history of the states and from now on we will try to understand the current dynamics of both the states and the role of different national and regional parties in shaping the altering the discourses of the future of both the states.