It appears YSR Congress party president and outgoing chief minister of Andhra Pradesh has not yet realised what went wrong for him and his party in the just concluded assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
He is said to be still banking on the officials and the party leaders in his coterie, who had misled him in the last five years and made him blind to the goings on within the party and the government.
According to sources, Jagan has reportedly entrusted the task of handling the party affairs to his close aides like party general secretaries V Vijay Sai Reddy and Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy and senior leader Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy. They were asked to take steps to rebuild the confidence in the cadre.
Soon after the declaration of results, Jagan reportedly held a meeting with these party seniors to do a quick post-mortem of the results. Sources said these leaders tried to convince the party president that the party had not really lost the elections, but the result was manipulated by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu in collusion with the BJP top leadership by changing the EVMs.
They told Jagan that the common people were still with the YSRCP and there was every possibility that it could bounce back in the coming days, as the Chandrababu Naidu government is going to bungle the administration very soon.
But what Jagan has not realised that it was these advisors and leaders in the coterie, who were responsible for the defeat of the party. His own party leaders have started pointing this out hours after the disastrous show of the party in the assembly elections.
Former Rajanagaram MLA Jakkampudi Raja blamed it on the coterie around Jagan for misleading him and not allowing the ground realities reaching him. He particularly blamed it on CMO secretary K Dhananjaya Reddy, who behaved like an extra constitutional authority.
“Jagan was misled by bureaucrats like Dhanunjay Reddy, who behaved like a chief minister and humiliated the party legislators. The chief minister blindly believed his coterie,” Raja said.
He said that Dhanunjay Reddy spent five years to clear his requests with regard to payment of compensation to the farmers under Purushottampatnam Lift Irrigation Scheme, Korukonda scheme, dues of Kapu students for Videshi Vidya Yojana scheme.
