The YSR Congress party had made a clean sweep in the assembly elections in Nellore in 2019, winning all 10 out of 10 assembly seats in the district; some of them with huge majority, like 61,000 votes in Sullurpeta.
But the same district has now turned out to be a big headache for party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
While two of the 10 MLAs – Anam Ramanarayan Reddy from Venkatagiri assembly constituency and Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy have openly revolted against the party leadership, at least three others are also said to be totally disgruntled.
Udayagiri MLA Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy is also speaking in a different tone for the last couple of days, expressing discontent over the interference of party observer Dhanunjay Reddy in his constituency, despite knowing that he was appointed by Jagan himself.
Gudur MLA Vara Prasad and Kovur MLA N Prasanna Kumar Reddy are also not taking very keen interest in the party activities, according to the information received by the power centre at Tadepalli.
This has become a big irritant for Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is understood to have decided to overhaul the party in Nellore district.
For Venkatagiri, he has already appointed Nedurumalli Ramkumar Reddy as the party in-charge, in an obvious replacement for Anam Ramanarayan Reddy.
For Nellore (rural), Jagan had to struggle a lot to find an alternative. He first decided to appoint Nellore Lok Sabha member Adala Prabhakar Reddy as the in-charge for this constituency, but he reportedly did not evince interest.
There was a talk that Jagan asked Nellore city MLA P Anil Kumar Yadav to be the in-charge of Nellore (rural) as well, but he, too, refused to take the offer. So, the YSRC chief had no option but to rope his uncle Balineni Srinivas Reddy to convince Adala again.
At last, Adala agreed for the post, only after getting an assurance from the party leadership that he would be inducted into the cabinet, if the YSRC wins the next elections and Jagan becomes the chief minister again.
With regard to other irritant constituencies, too, Jagan is learnt to have decided to make changes by selecting winnable chances.
Sources, however, said the chief minister would have to go into the root cause of the issues that led to the revolt by some MLAs. Many of the MLAs in the district are upset, not exactly with Jagan, but the dominance of the two leaders – former minister P Anil Kumar Yadav and present minister Kakani Goverdhan Reddy.
These two leaders are allegedly trying to suppress others and all the official machinery in the district listens to only them, ignoring others. Since Jagan is encouraging only these leaders, others are unhappy, sources said.
