YSRC starts efforts to strengthen party in segments where its MLAs are weak

VIJAYAWADA: The ruling YSR Congress started efforts to strengthen the party in assembly segments where the party MLAs’ performance graphs are weak or not impressive by appointing additional coordinators.

Chief Minister Jagan Reddy started an experiment in the Tadikonda assembly segment of V Sridevi in Amaravati by appointing MLC Dokka Varaprasad as additional coordinator, giving indications about a change of candidate for the next polls.

Nearly 40 existing candidates will be replaced with others or the constituencies of these sitting MLAs will be changed in the 2024 elections.

Sources said the CM commissioned surveys in recent times, which revealed the performance of the party MLAs was weak in many assembly segments in Guntur, Bapatla, Palnadu, Prakasam, Nellore, Chittoor, Godavari, NTR, Krishna, Visakhapatnam districts.

According to these surveys, YSRC legislators had poor performance in Tadikonda segment, of which capital Amaravati is a part. MLC Varaprasad has vast experience and connections in Tadikonda constituency compared to MLA Sridevi. Hence Jagan appointed Varaprasad as additional incharge for the Tadikonda segment.

This, however, caused an uproar within the party, especially among the sitting YSRC MLAs.

Sridevi resisted the appointment of Varaprasad as the party in-charge, as she took it as a hint that she might be replaced by him in the next elections. Sridevi and her followers staged a dharna in front of the residence of former minister Mekathoti Sucharita, seeking justice.

Similarly, groupism is haunting the ruling party in Darsi segment where sitting YSRC MLA Maddisetti Venugopal was absent at Jagan’s programme in Chimakurthy on August 24 due to differences with other YSRC leaders.

MLA Venugopal alleged that groups were working against him for the past three years and affirmed that he will not tolerate this anymore. The YSRC high-command might attempt to resolve the Darsi issues by appointing a new or additional coordinator to strengthen the party.

Sources said CM Jagan is concentrating on the Mangalagiri seat also where Alla Ramakrishna is the YSRC MLA. Last time, TD secretary Nara Lokesh faced defeat at Mangalagiri. Hence, he is camping there and mingling with locals, so as to win the seat in the 2024 elections.

They said the CM is likely to pick up a BC leader in Mangalagiri where Padmasalis, a BC community, is a deciding factor in elections.

Political analysts say Jagan is contemplating similar moves -- of appointing new or additional incharges -- in nearly 40 more constituencies from where he got negative feedback about the sitting MLAs in his independent surveys. This has led to a panic-type of situation among the MLAs in several constituencies.

It is learnt that Jagan is calling party presidents of the newly-formed districts and telling them about the intelligence reports and other survey reports on the performance of the MLAs in their respective districts.

The CM is telling the MLAs that they would be given some more time to improve their performance, failing which they would be replaced by new faces.

Several MLAs who did little for betterment of their performance graphs, thinking that two more years are left for the next elections, are now starting mass interaction programmes in their segments. The Tadikonda episode has sent a strong message to the MLAs that they cannot take things granted in their constituencies and that if they won’t perform, they would be shown the door.