Andhra: Jagan Mohan strikes pre-emptive blow on TDP by announcing bus yatras from 26 October

Lokesh has already been questioned by the Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) in the Amaravati Inner Ring Road case, and his name also figures in the alleged Fibrenet scam.

Nadiu’s wife Bhuvaneswari is also preparing to hit the streets to mobilise public opinion in Naidu’s favour. But it is anybody’s guess as to what extent Bhuvaneswari, a novice to politics, would be able to connect with people.

Finding that this was the opportune time he has been waiting for, Jagan Mohan moved in for the big kill as elections are just about six months away.

Naidu’s arrest forced Lokesh, who is TDP’s general secretary, to abandon his padayatra — the Yuva Galam (Voice of Youth) — in East Godavari district on 9 September, the day Naidu was arrested in a pre-dawn swoop in Nandyal, and rush to Rajamahendravaram to confer with his father on the future course of action.

The political space lay wide open for the YSRCP to move in.

Jagan Mohan has been successful in pinning down the entire TDP to the task of hiring lawyers for fighting court battles as the CID has begun slapping one case after the other against Naidu and Lokesh.

Also read: SC posts anticipatory bail plea of Naidu in Fibernet case to 9 Nov

Jagan Mohan announces bus yatras

The Andhra chief minister, who found that the mindspace of the TDP is completely focused on getting Naidu out of jail, announced the bus yatras. The note of urgency in Jagan Mohan’s voice to cover as much political ground as possible, while Naidu is away in jail, was hard to miss as he explained the objectives of the yatra.

Samajika Sadhikara Yatra.
Wheels of Social Empowerment is all set to ride in Andhra Pradesh. 🙌🏻🚍🛞 #SamajikaSadhikaraYatra#SocialEngineering#CMYSJagan#YSRCPBusYatra#AndhraPradesh pic.twitter.com/i8208nC7VK

— DrMallikarjunreddy (@RohithPandu2) October 21, 2023

He said the yatras are to explain to the people the good work that the state government had done for all sections of society, including Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Backward Classes (BCs), the minorities, and the poor.

The yatras will be in phases and are expected to cover all 175 segments of the state.

He appeared very keen that the entire state should talk about the YSRCP government and the programmes it had taken up, all the time.

Accordingly, he decided that there should be padayatras on the move in all the three regions of the state simultaneously. He asked all his 17 ministers to take a deep dive into the programme, leaving no breathing space for the TDP.

At the end of the day, there would public meetings for the party leaders to address. They would be presided by the MLAs of the constituency concerned.

If the YSRCP does not have an MLA in a constituency where the bus yatra is on the move, the Assembly segment in charge of the party would chair the meeting. All the meetings would be addressed from the top of the buses.

Also read: TDP, Jana Sena to hold JAC on Dasara to discuss plan of action 

It’s a ‘class war’ 

Unwittingly, Jagan Mohan, at the party workers’ meeting, used the words that one finds in Marxian literature — class war.

He said that the battle that lay ahead would be between the poor and the feudal forces in the villages that always keep the former under subjugation.

He also declared that the YSRCP was the party of the poor which has a distant echo of the speeches of former chief minister, the late actor-politician NT Rama Rao, or NTR, who used to say that the poor man was his God and the society at large was his temple.