When the YSR Congress Party was in power between 2019 and 2024, party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had a single-minded objective: to completely decimate the Telugu Desam Party by targeting its president, N Chandrababu Naidu.
After ensuring the defeat of Naidu’s son, Nara Lokesh, in the Mangalagiri Assembly constituency, Jagan turned his focus to defeating Naidu in his own Kuppam constituency.
He mobilised all party resources, led by his senior and trusted lieutenant Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, to Kuppam and sought to suppress the TDP’s presence there. The ruling party virtually launched a witch-hunt against local TDP leaders.
With the help of the same machinery, Jagan ensured that the YSRCP won nearly 90 percent of gram panchayat, mandal, and zilla parishad seats, and even captured the Kuppam municipality. Several TDP leaders were also pressured into joining the YSRCP.
Jagan believed that if he could defeat Naidu in Kuppam in the 2024 Assembly elections, it would mark the end of Naidu’s political career and signal the collapse of the TDP in Andhra Pradesh. It was with this ambition that he launched the slogan: “Why not 175?”
But that vision did not materialize. Naidu bounced back with greater strength — not only in Kuppam, but across the entire state. Jagan, meanwhile, was left with a humiliating tally of just 11 seats in the 175-member Assembly.
Now, it appears that Naidu is adopting a similar strategy. He is reportedly planning to challenge Jagan in his stronghold of Pulivendula, in the YSR Kadapa district. The Chief Minister is said to be making strategic decisions aimed at wiping out the YSRCP from the constituency.
According to sources, Naidu is working on a plan to gain control over municipal corporations and municipalities in Pulivendula, thereby weakening the YSRCP's grip ahead of the next elections.
As part of this broader strategy, party insiders say, Naidu has decided to hold the TDP’s annual Mahanadu in the YSR Kadapa district this May.
There is a strong push from TDP leaders in the region to host the event in Pulivendula — Jagan’s own constituency — as a show of strength and to boost party morale, thereby strengthening the TDP’s presence in Rayalaseema.
“Holding the Mahanadu in Pulivendula might be a strategic move by the TDP,” said a senior journalist from Kadapa. “But one wonders whether it will yield any political mileage, as the people of Pulivendula are die-hard loyalists of the YSR family. Naidu’s move may simply be seen as political revenge. He could end up facing the same fate as Jagan did in Kuppam.”
