Andhra: Special status and the march that propelled Jagan to power
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh people have showed the door to TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu and brought in YSR Congress’ Jaganmohan Reddy.
YSR Congress is set to win the first full-fledged election in the state handsomely.
The major two factors that led to the fall of Chandrababu Naidu in the state were the break of the TDP-NDA alliance and the very popular state-wide march by Jagan.
Read: Andhra results LIVE: YSRCP's Jagan set to rule state, swearing-in on May 30?
In 2018, Telugu Desam Party, led by Chandrababu Naidu, walked out of the BJP-led NDA alliance over the special category status for the state. He also grudged the Centre for not giving Andhra financial support.
Since then, Naidu has been at the forefront of forming an anti-BJP alliance.
He had promised the people of this and was confident of getting both the special category status and the grants. Jagan exploited this failure by making it his campaign trump card.
He had campaigned that he would go with the party that gave the state the special status. Point is the NDA doesn’t need any partner since it has stomped back to power for a second time. Can Jagan swing it, more so, because the NDA was so unresponsive to Naidu’s request.
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Taking a leaf out of his father’s campaign, Jagan had launched a statewide 3,640 km long foot march over the last 14 months to take his fight against Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to the people.
In 2003, ahead of Assembly elections, Jaganmohan’s father, then Congress leader Y S Rajashekara Reddy, had done the same across undivided Andhra to eventually succeed in unseating Naidu from power.
During the march, Jagan assured his supporters of better doorstep governance through the decentralisation of administration and increasing the districts from 13 to 25.
He had also mentioned that if he came to power, the decentralisation of administration and governance would take centrestage to ensure that all welfare schemes would reach all sections of society.
Poll results show Jaganmohan Reddy has succeeded.
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