BJP game plan in AP: Finish Jagan, promote Pawan. Will it succeed?

The YSR Congress Party, led by former chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy, is passing through an existential crisis.

V Vijayasai Reddy, its general secretary and considered one of its pillars, resigned from the Rajya Sabha on January 23. His resignation was immediately accepted by Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankar. Vijayasai said he was quitting politics to take to horticulture. This happened when party chief YS Jagan was holidaying in London.

Vijayasai’s resignation from the Rajya Sabha, the fourth in as many months, has reduced the party’s strength in the upper house to seven from 11. Earlier, R Krishniah, Beeda Mastan Rao and Mopidevi Venkataramana quit the party and the Rajya Sabha.

Rajya Sabha drama

While Krishnaiah returned to the upper house as a BJP member from Andhra Pradesh, Rao was reelected as a nominee of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in the elections held in November 2024. All four quit the Rajya Sabha halfway through their tenure with the full knowledge that they were harming Jagan by joining hands with his arch-rival and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

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So, the talk in the political circles is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is behind the moves and the saffron party appears to have a bigger game plan up its sleeves.

Jana Sena and BJP

Congress leader Dr N Tulasireddy says Vijayasai’s resignation might help movie star and former union minister Chiranjeevi to enter the Rajya Sabha as a Jana Sena member. “In November, byelections were held for three Rajya Sabha seats. Keeping two seats for itself, the TDP offered one to the BJP. YSR has no strength to field a candidate. Now, TDP is expected to offer the seat vacated by Viajayasai to Jana Sena. Indications are that Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan will field his brother Chiranjeevi in the next byelection,” Tulasi Reddy said.

Tulasi Reddy said Chiranjeevi’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy’s house in New Delhi on January 13 to celebrate Sankranti was a significant event.

Tulasi Reddy did not rule out a political connection between Chiranjeevi’s bonhomie with Modi and Vijayasai’s resignation. Chiranjeevi is the eldest brother of Pawan Kalyan.

A Kapu family

Jana Sena, which won all 21 seats it contested in 2024 Assembly elections, is now giving rise to a new political family and the first Kapu family in the state. Pawan Kalyan is the deputy chief minister and his elder brother K Nagababu has been promised a cabinet berth by none other than Chandrababu Naidu. If Chiranjeevi were to become a Rajya Sabha member, a strong Kapu family is certain to emerge in the political landscape of Andhra Pradesh.

Summing up these developments, a Jana Sena sympathizer recalled how people cheered when Modi held the hands of Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan high in the air before a huge crowd gathered for the swearing-in of Chandrababu Naidu as chief minister in June 2024, “Medium is the message,” he quipped.

Also Read: As Pawan exerts authority, friction mars TDP-Jana Sena ties in Andhra

YSR and Kapu families

The question now being asked is: will the emerging Kapu family replace the YSR family in state politics with the help of the BJP, ending the 70-year-long Reddy hegemony in Andhra Pradesh?

Decline of the YSR Congress is essential for the rise of Jana Sena and BJP, says G Sriramalu of Gulbarga University, Karnataka. “When a state is polarized between two dominant regional parties, it is difficult for a third party to carve out a space. When the YSR Congress weakens, the Jana Sena and BJP benefit more as the TDP is already full to the brim,” Sriramulu, who hails from Andhra, told The Federal.

Trouble for Vijayasai

Vijayasai’s political and business connections with YS Jagan’s family are well known. As the family Chartered Accountant, he played a key role in the expansion of Jagan’s business empire. It is this nexus that made him a co-accused in Jagan’s Disproportionate Assets case which is now under scrutiny in a CBI court.

On January 27, the Supreme Court quashed Jagan’s petition seeking the transfer of the case from Hyderabad to a location outside Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The apex court directed the CBI court to conduct hearings on a day-to-day basis. A few more cases are expected to be slapped against Vijayasai by the NDA government in Andhra Pradesh.

The much-talked-about recent charge against Vijayasai is that he was instrumental in the illegal transfer of shares from Kakinada Sea Port Co (KSPC) to a firm owned by his relatives. The CID has got complaints from the promoter of KSPC. Vijayasai’s resignation and quitting public life altogether is seen as part of a deal to save his reputation from being tarnished further.

YSR Congress dented

Electoral defeat, Jagan’s court cases and resignations from the party have had a demoralizing effect on the YSR Congress cadre. While important leaders have fallen silent, many are quitting the party.

At this juncture, a negative outcome of the cases would not only end the dominance of the YSR family in Andhra politics but also lead to a collapse of the Reddy caste hegemony in politics that began in 1956 with the formation of Andhra Pradesh. The Reddy dominance reached its pinnacle when Jagan was chief minister between 2019 and 2024.

As of now, other than YS Jagan’s family, there is no Reddy political family that is influential outside an Assembly constituency to carry forward the Reddy legacy. Gone were the days when multitude of Reddy families such as Kotla, Kasu, Nedurumalli and Nallari with considerable history and commitment controlled the politics as Congress families.

Choking the Reddys

As the leader, Jagan did not allow any other Reddy family to grow stronger. His aspiration to become a supreme Reddy to rule the state has become his Achilles’ heel.

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In 1972, following the 1969 Telangana movement spearheaded M Chenna Reddy, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sought to end the Reddys’ dominance in the state by restructuring the organization. She thought that if PV Narasimha Rao was made chief minister, he would rein in the Reddys. But the experiment failed, leading to President’s rule in January 1973. Later, the Reddys staged a comeback with renewed vigour. The Congress had to make peace with the Reddys.

But now, without a ripple, Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are attempting to demolish the Reddy hegemony in the state. Will Kapus emerge as an alternative to the Reddys?