After facing a humiliating defeat in the last assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, YSR Congress party president and former chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has given the impression that he is going to completely overhaul the party organisation.
There were reports from within the party that Jagan is going to discard the old elements in his coterie, against whom there were a lot of complaints from the leaders and cadres at the ground level that they had misled him by giving him a wrong picture of the people’s perception.
The party sources said then that Jagan will bring in fresh faces into the party’s top leadership to get fresh ideas to rejuvenate the party. They said Jagan would do away with the system of appointing regional coordinators of the party and strengthen the district party units by giving full powers to the district presidents.
But nothing of that sort has happened. The same old leaders – Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, Dhanunjay Reddy and others, who were ruling the roost in the last five years, are back in their position, calling the shots.
A couple of seniors like V Vijay Sai Reddy and Y V Subba Reddy have been keeping away from day-to-day activities, though they have remained loyal to the party leadership.
Sources said Jagan is also contemplating bringing back the team of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) soon to work out the party’s campaign strategies and help build up the party’s image in the next three years.
According to latest reports, the YSRCP president has decided to bring back the regional coordinators’ system, which was originally believed to be responsible for the chaos in the party during the elections.
Sources said Jagan had called for a meeting of senior party leaders on Wednesday to decide the appointment of regional coordinators across the state.
“In all the likelihood, he might announce some names as regional coordinators by evening,” sources said.
One won’t be surprised if the same old leaders who had been regional coordinators in the past might be back in their positions.
“It looks like Jagan is running out of ideas in restructuring the party. One would have to see whether it would help the party in any manner in the coming days,” sources said.
