Amaravati: It was in 2004 that Nara Chandrababu Naidu met his nemesis in Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy in the then undivided Andhra Pradesh. Fifteen years later he faces a similar threat from his son Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy in the now truncated state.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief is perhaps facing the biggest challenge of his four-decade-long political career in the fierce battle for power against Jagan, as the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) chief is popularly known.
If surveys by different media organisations are any indication, Jagan seems to be edging ahead of Naidu in what was earlier expected to be a neck-and-neck race for the 175-member Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats going to polls on April 11. Buoyed by series of defections from the ruling party and the tremendous public response to his election rallies, Jagan is confident of achieving his long-cherished goal of becoming the CM.
Political analysts say Naidu’s flip-flop on the issue of Special Category Status (SCS) to the state, on ties with the BJP and his sudden friendship with the Congress, his bitter enemy of over 35 years, may prove him dear. In the 2014 elections held in the aftermath of the state’s bifurcation, the people reposed faith in Chandrababu Naidu.
As the state was making a beginning without even a capital, people preferred Naidu for his vast political and administrative experience and as someone seen by many as the architect of the modern Hyderabad. As the campaigning gathered momentum, Naidu, who will turn 69 next month, is harping on the ‘conspiracy’ jointly hatched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jagan and Telangana CM K. Chandrashekhar Rao.
On the other hand, 46-year-old Jagan is urging people to give him a chance to usher in ‘Rajanna rajyam’ , a reference to the rule of his late father YSR, who was credited with introducing many path-breaking welfare schemes for poor and weaker sections of the society.
Naidu fought the previous elections in alliance with the BJP and was a partner in BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. He had accepted a special package offered by the Centre in lieu of SCS and had even defended himself with the argument that SCS was not a panacea.
It was last year that Naidu took a U-turn, apparently after he came under flak from opposition especially the YSRCP, which tried to capitalise on the TDP’s failure to achieve SCS and other commitments made by the Centre at the time of the state’s bifurcation. To compete with YSRCP as the vanguard of the state’s interests, Naidu pulled out of NDA and even moved a no-confidence motion against the Modi government.
