Will the Congress repeat the same feat in Hyderabad as it does in Dehi ?

Now, with funeral fire of late AP chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy dying down, the
chorus for his successor is becoming more loud. A lot is being written about the probable
choices. But for me, this is the first time in AP congress, the list of state level probable
leaders is narrowing down. In one sense this can also be attributed to the functioning style
of late CM, as he never ever allowed to emerge a possible challenger with in his own
party. He was well experienced about that kind of situation, being dissident, he organized
so many camps, agitations against the incumbent chief ministers between 1989 -1994. He
was a committed leader with a vision of his own. Along with own personality, the aides
surrounded by him, such as KVP Ramachandra Rao, trusted lieutenants such as Rosaiah,
( who became interim chief minister) Botsa Satyanarayana etc, helped him to scuttle
down the probable challengers.

One instance is sufficient to understand his style of sidelining the potential enemies from
with in. After achieving the life long ambition to become chief minister, he encountered
with a problem of accommodating the different fractions in his first cabinet. The major
test he met at a time when he has to choose fraction representatives from former Chief
minister and the then Lok Sabha MP from Vizag, Nedurumalli Janardhana Reddy.
Janardhana Reddy played a game both at center and in the state. First he bargained with
YSR for a berth for his wife Rajya Lakshmi. Once he got it confirmed, then started
playing with AICC to become central minister. That was the time AICC president realized
that the congress government at the centre in 2004 is except not because of AP congress.
Keeping that advantage in his side, YSR came up with a formula that who ever is
accommodated in his cabinet, need not to be accommodated at the centre. Congress
president immediately sprung in to action the firmly told Janardhana Reddy and Venkata
Sway, Congress veterans from AP, to stay away from the race. This lead to sudden
disappearance of NJR through back gates of AICC office while we were all waiting to
catch him for his post meeting reactions. Not only that. YSR skillfully used Panabaka
Lakshmi by bringing her in to central government and pitted her against NJR fraction in
Nellore politics.

With such skills, he ensured that there won’t be dual power centers in the state.
Simultaneously he incorporated the dissident leaders gradually. No congress chief
minister refused to relent from the demands of cabinet expansions for years together,
except that happened in AP under YSR regime. He choose the postponement of cabinet
expansion to see that the dissidence won’t spillover to the streets. Thus he positively, and
negatively unified all congress fractions and saw they stood behind him in one voice.
Though short, in my memory, I have not seen a congress chief minister of AP lived
through his full term with out a single serious challenge. Thus leaving no serious
challenger with credible mass base of his own.

This lead to a situation in the post tragic death of YSR, no body questioned AICC’s late
night meeting decision to crown Rosaiah as an interim chief minister. The exercise for
crowning the fulltime chief minister is on. The LB stadium gathering, the state witnessed,
seems with a plan to orchestrate the demand for anointment of YS Jagan as the successor.
Here the question rises, whether AICC chooses to replicate the tightly sewed dual power
centers formula that is under implementation at the centre for the last 6 years. The actors
are looking more or less same. Though politically, Rosaiah is having more experience in
the state politics unlike incumbent prime minister Manmohan Sigh, all the time he was
and is seen not as a serious contender but a follower, like Manmohan Singh. Emerged
from small middle caste, class family, like PM, Rosaiah, used all his political acumen to
save YSR on the occasions when he came under sever attack from various quarters from
with in and from outside as Sonia is doing in case of Manmohan Singh. This arrangement
helps YS Jagan to construct his political personality, own image, prepare ground to play a
long innings, as Rahul Gandhi was doing. Though this arrangement gives some
operating space to senior congress leaders such as Jaipal Reddy, D. Srinivas, to name a
few, as a whole that helps to kept the state unit of the party sewed, united, to save itself
from opposition attacks and mass discontentment.