The YSR Congress is struggling to carry forward the ongoing Samaikyandhra agitation in Chittoor district, the home turf of Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu, after the APNGOs Association temporarily called off their strike.
The presence of Telugu Desam and Congress cadres and their relay hunger strike camps have disappeared in recent days.
But a month-long schedule for the Samaikyandhra stir was drawn up for the YSRC from October 2 to November 1 to mark the AP State Formation Day.
The cadres commenced their hunger strike camps on October 2 and protests continued into night under the scrutiny of party chief Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
However, the intensity decreased with cadres removing their camps at many places, despite the one-month schedule.
On October 7, in district headquarters Chittoor, the YSRC cadres held a dharna in front of the house of Puthalapattu Congress MLA, P. Ravi, instead of demonstrating at the residence of local Congress MLA, C.K. Babu. The response from the farmers for the party sponsored Rythu Deeksha was lukewarm in many areas in the district, except in the western mandals. Similarly, the party skipped the auto-rally, scheduled on October 17, at many places.
The party’s Chittoor convenor, Pula Raghunatha Reddy, said that as the party leaders were busy with preparations for Samaikya Sankavaram in Hyderabad, they could not stick to the schedule.
Some party functionaries maintained that it was not a problem to participate in the agitation when it was in full swing, but after the withdrawal of the APNGOs and the silence of Congress and TD leaders, the cadres had to put in extra effort to register the protest.
