The steep drop in the Indian National Congress’s vote share to a mere 1.5% from being the longest-serving ruling party of the largest southern State of the united Andhra Pradesh makes it an uphill task for its leaders to put up a decent show in the upcoming Assembly and general elections in the State.
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The apparent reason for the grand old party’s fatal fall in State, as believed by political experts, is that it approved the carving out of Telangana by bifurcating the united Andhra Pradesh. It is another matter that the party had to remain out of power for a decade, even in the newborn State.
The strong belief among the public that the damage done to Andhra Pradesh during the bifurcation is not yet undone makes it appear that the voters are not yet ready to come to terms with the ‘bifurcation blues’ and the Centre’s ‘unkept promises’.
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However, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Y.S. Sharmila objects to the idea of putting the entire blame for the bifurcation on Congress when the decision was largely consensual among all the stakeholders involved.
In an exclusive interview with The Hindu during her ‘AP Nyaya Yatra’, which is also the political campaign for her maiden election contest as an MP candidate for the Kadapa Lok Sabha constituency, Ms. Sharmila said the singling out of the Congress for the collective decision taken after prolonged discussion and debates in the Parliament was unacceptable.
‘BJP is actual villain’
“The decision [to divide the State] was not unilateral. The Bharatiya Janata Party was also party to it, which was, in fact, not at all hesitant in claiming credit for it. But when it came to sharing the blame, the BJP backed out and projected Congress as the sole culprit. BJP is the actual villain in this scenario,” she said.
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Ms. Sharmila reiterated that the Congress had planned to give Special Category Status (SCS) for the State, special packages for backward regions like Rayalaseema and Uttarandhra and the construction of a new capital, Polavaram project, Kadapa steel plant, Dugarajapatnam port and several other measures to support the State that would be left financially bleeding after the division.
“The NDA, as the successor government in 2014, should have fulfilled the above promises made on the floor of the House but failed to do so. Had the people voted the UPA to power, the Congress Government would have surely implemented all the above so that the people of Andhra Pradesh would not have felt the pain of bifurcation,” she asserted.
‘TDP,YSRCP subservient to BJP’
Having taken the reins of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, Ms. Sharmila is leaving no opportunity to lash out at the TDP and the YSRCP which was founded by her brother, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, for turning subservient to the BJP and not demanding the State’s pound of flesh.
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“The successive governments (post-bifurcation) led by Mr. Chandrababu Naidu and Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy treated the BJP-led Centre with kid gloves, thus doing more harm than good for the State,” she charged.
‘Dr. YSR was always against BJP’
Now, she is training her guns on Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy for his “tacit understanding” with the BJP Government in the Centre for the last five years, which according to her, would not have been acceptable for her father. “Late Dr. YSR always stood against the BJP’s divide and rule policy, but Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy is unabashedly allying with the saffron party, in spite of staking claim to the legacy of our father,” she fumed.
She reiterated that her tirade against her brother’s regime was only to put the State back on the development track from its ‘derailed’ condition.