The TDP’s relentless campaign against YSRCP has backfired. By putting the real numbers on record, the ruling coalition has ended up shooting itself in the foot, demolishing the very myth on which its electoral momentum was built.
Published Sep 24, 2025 | 7:00 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 24, 2025 | 7:00 PM
N Chandrababu Naidu and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy (X)
Synopsis: The TDP-led NDA government is in an unenviable position: For long, it has been accusing the previous YRSCP government of financial profligacy. However, the data, the current dispensation tabled in the Assembly, tells a different story.
The TDP-led NDA government in Andhra Pradesh seems to have scored a self-goal in the Assembly as well as in the state.
For a long time, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) hammered home a single political charge against YS Jagan Mohan Reddy — that he had buried the state under an unprecedented debt mountain of ₹10 lakh crore.
But figures placed in the Assembly — by the TDP-led government— exposed that claim as a political hyperbole.
The government’s statement on debts, tabled in the House by Finance Minister Payyavula Keshav, showed Andhra Pradesh’s borrowings and liabilities at the end of March 2024 at ₹6,77,849 crore.
The bigger revelation followed: Cumulative net borrowings during Jagan’s five-year rule (2019–2024) were about ₹3.7 lakh crore, as against what N Chandrababu Naidu’s government borrowed in its 2014–2019 term – ₹3.06 lakh crore.
In other words, Jagan had borrowed ₹54,000 crore more than Naidu.
For months, TDP leaders accused Jagan of fiscal profligacy, warning that his “reckless welfare model” had shackled future generations with unbearable debt. But by the government’s own disclosures, the figures simply don’t support the charge.
The TDP leaders had said Jagan’s borrowings stood at ₹10 lakh crore at one time and ₹14 lakh crore at another time.
What makes this politically damaging for the NDA is the timing. With the new government seeking to reset fiscal priorities, it had hoped to pin every budgetary stress on Jagan. Instead, the data tabled in the Assembly spoke about continuity, not collapse: successive governments, regardless of the party, leaned heavily on borrowings to run the state.
For the YSRCP, this is vindication. Party leaders have long argued that Jagan’s borrowings were in line with national trends, driven by welfare spending and infrastructure needs. They can now point to the official documents to accuse Naidu of peddling a false debt scare.
In effect, the TDP’s relentless campaign has backfired. By putting the real numbers on record, the ruling coalition has ended up shooting itself in the foot, demolishing the very myth on which its electoral momentum was built.
Apart from that, Keshav has announced that in the current fiscal 2025-25, the total debt target will be ₹103,656 crore. By the end of August, the state had already borrowed ₹44,364 crore.
1. 2014–2019 (Naidu’s 1st term after bifurcation)
Debt at end of March 2019: ₹3.06 lakh crore
2. 2019–2024 (Jagan’s term)
As of June 2024, the total debt was ₹677,849 crore.
Net addition under Jagan (2019–2024): ≈ ₹3.5 lakh crore.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
