Raised in feudal politics, why Jagan can't shake off his vengeance for rivals

“There is nothing wrong if Chandrababu Naidu is shot in the middle of the road for all his misdeeds,” YSR Congress Party supremo Jagan Mohan Reddy had said, while addressing an election rally at Nandyal in the faction-ridden Rayalaseema region in August, 2017.

The shocking outburst in full media glare reflected the nature of rivalry between the two leaders and the bitterness that has come to define the state politics.

Two years later, the new role of chief minister doesn’t seem to have any sobering effect on Jagan as he goes about targeting the vanquished rival and his party with the same malevolent fervour that had marked the pre-election rhetoric.

Be it the reversal of key policy decisions of the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime, scaling down the security cover for Naidu, slapping a demolition notice on his riverfront residence near Vijayawada or foiling an opposition protest rally with the full might of the state police, the Chief Minister has been pursuing an unmasked vendetta politics.

Also Read | Palnadu turns ground zero for Andhra revenge politics 

Air of negativity

By solely focusing on undoing whatever his bete noire had done in the past, Jagan the businessman-turned-politician, appears to be squandering away the massive mandate he secured in the recent elections and rapidly losing the narrative.

The state government’s clampdown on the opposition, marked by a string of arrests of the TDP leaders and cadre and curbs on their movement, is turning Andhra Pradesh into a fierce battle zone of revenge politics.

The ruthlessness with which the political opponents are being pursued has created an air of negativity in a state which is still grappling with the bifurcation blues and struggling to mobilise resources to fund its welfare and development programmes.

What surprised political observers was the ferocity with which the opposition rally was foiled early this week. What was essentially an innocuous call by the TDP to stage a march to Atmakur in Guntur district, to protest against the alleged political killings, was met with disproportionate response from the government.

While TDP president and former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh were kept under house arrest for two days, the other TDP leaders and cadre were arrested at various places to prevent them from joining the “Chalo Atmakur” rally.

Former TDP MLA Chintamaneni Prabhakar was arrested under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act and the opposition party has alleged that his house in West Godavari district was raided without the requisite search warrant.

Also Read | 100 days of Jagan: a political scion’s tumultuous rise to power

In another move, the authorities have seized a five-acre land from the family of C Kutumbha Rao, former AP Planning Board vice-chairman and a close aide of Chandrababu Naidu. The land, situated in Madhura Nagar in Vijayawada, has been seized by the revenue officials on the ground that it belongs to the government.

Meanwhile, the stage is set for the arrest of senior TDP leader and former AP Mahila Commission chairperson Nannapaneni Rajakumari for allegedly abusing a Dalit woman police officer using her caste name.

All these incidents point towards a sustained campaign by the YSRCP to corner the opposition party from every possible angle.

“The fundamental rights are being denied in a brazen manner. We were prevented from visiting the victims of political violence. All that we wanted to do was to take out a rally and send the victims back to their villages. I don’t understand how it will lead to law and order breakdown,” Chandrababu Naidu lamented.

“This is nothing but dictatorship. The government is behaving like Tughlaq,” Nara Lokesh said.

While post-election violence is not uncommon in Palnadu region, covering Guntur and Prakasam districts, it has been particularly fierce and sustained this time around.

The Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s decisions to cancel key projects of the previous regime and his frequent public statements vowing to expose Naidu’s corrupt deals had led to the escalation of tension.

Negating the mandate

Jagan steered his party to a stupendous victory in the April 11 elections, bagging 152 seats in the 175-member Assembly. The people had voted him to power to create jobs, improve governance, attract investments and provide corruption-free administration. However, his actions so far show him as an overzealous, vengeful politician bent upon settling political scores with opponents rather than focusing on bringing about the changes he had promised.

At the root of the rivalry lies Jagan’s belief that it was the TDP leaders’ ‘fabricated complaints’ which led to his arrest and incarceration in the alleged illegal assets case in 2012.

For someone nurtured in feudal political culture of the faction-ridden Rayalaseema region, where loyalties and rivalries run through generations, Jagan apparently cannot shrug off his revenge instincts.

Also read | 100 days of Jagan: vindictive, populist politics hinder development 

V for vendetta

A look at a series of steps taken over the past few months shows that Jagan is more interested in scoring political brownie points against his bête noire and “exposing the omissions and commissions” of the previous regime than improving governance.

From ordering demolition of Praja Vedika, a swanky convention hall adjacent to Naidu’s rented riverside bungalow in Vijayawada to halting work in Amaravati, the dream capital of Andhra Pradesh, and cancelling the contracts of mega projects, the government’s actions have kicked up political controversy and raised questions over the fate of several key projects in the state.

It has also angered the Centre by its decision to review Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) made during the previous TDP regime with solar and wind power producers. The Union government has warned that revisiting the PPAs would halt the flow of foreign investments into the sector, which holds key to meet environmental and power needs of the country.