Rajya Sabha MP Bose has threatened to quit if I&PR Minister Venugopala Krishna is given the ticket to contest from Ramachandrapuram.
YSRCP leaders Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose and Chelluboyina Venugopala Krishna.
The ruling YSRCP is grappling with a crisis in the electorally-crucial Godavari region of Andhra Pradesh where two heavyweight party leaders have locked horns over a key Assembly constituency.
Rajya Sabha MP Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose and Information and Public Relations Minister Chelluboyina Venugopala Krishna — both members of the prominent Setti Balija community — want to contest from the Ramachandrapuram Assembly segment — and neither is willing to relent.
Bose has vented against Venugopala Krishna and has even threatened to quit the ruling party if the latter was given the party ticket to contest the 2024 polls from the Assembly segment.
The Godavari region, which sends 34 legislators to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, is important for all political parties in the state — in most scenarios, the party that sweeps the region forms the government.
In such a situation, two leaders of a numerically-strong community crossing swords has got the alarm bells jangling in the ruling party.
After the Kapus — electorally the strongest community in the region — several castes that come under the Backward Classes (BCs) category are key to success in the two Godavari districts.
In the Godavari region, among the BCs, Setti Balijas form a major chunk and wield influence in at least a dozen Assembly segments.
In the event of a tie-up between the TDP and actor-politician Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena, a Kapu consolidation is expected in favour of the alliance. To offset such a consolidation, the ruling YSRCP is banking on a counter-consolidation of the BC communities.
So two BC members squabbling is not great news for Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s party.
Rajya Sabha MP Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose has represented the Ramachandrapuram segment three times since 1989 on Congress tickets. He has, however, lost there twice — in 2012 (bypolls) and again in 2014 — both times on YSRCP tickets.
Bose was minister twice in the Cabinet of the late chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh YS Rajasekhar Reddy, or YSR. Later, after YSR’s death in a helicopter accident, when his son Jagan Mohan left the Congress and floated the YSRCP, Bose followed him.
As his chances were grim in the 2019 polls, YSRCP supremo Jagan Mohan replaced Bose with Venugopala Krishna as the Ramachandrapuram candidate.
Though Bose contested in the 2019 polls from Mandapeta and lost, Jagan made him a member of the Legislative Council, the Upper House, and took him into his Cabinet in 2019, immediately after coming to power.
However, Jagan sent Bose to the Rajya Sabha when he decided to abolish the Legislative Council. The move to abolish the Council, however, did not fructify.
But as he was sent to the Rajya Sabha, Bose had to resign from the state Cabinet.
To take Bose’s place as the BC representative in Jagan’s Cabinet — as part of his time-tested social engineering formula — the chief minister inducted Venugopala Krishna, a first-time MLA, into his Council of Ministers.
Venugopala Krishna, who started his political career with the Congress party, was a Zilla Parishad chairman before shifting to the YSRCP. In the 2014 Assembly election, he contested from the Kakinada rural segment on the party’s ticket, but lost.
In 2019, Jagan shifted him to Ramachandrapuram.
What sparked the latest round of acrimony between the two party leaders was an assertion by Venugopala Krishna, made privately to his followers, that he would contest Ramachandrapuram.
“Not only in 2024 but in 2029 also, I will be the YSRCP candidate from the Ramachandrapuram segment. Our party president had assured me of this,” said Venugopala Krishna.
When word got out, Bose was incensed.
“If Venugoapala Krishna is going to contest from the Ramachandrapuram segment, I’m ready to quit the party. Either me or my son should get the YSRCP ticket in the 2024 polls. If not, one of us would contest as an independent. I am not going to relent. He has been harassing my followers also,” said Bose.
Reports suggest that party chief Jagan personally attempted to intervene and sort out the differences between the two warring BC leaders.
However, his attempts fell flat. It is learnt that both the leaders were not even ready to sit across the table to discuss their differences.
“It’s a tricky situation for both the leaders,” a YSRCP leader told South First.
About Venugopala Krishna, the leader said: “He doesn’t have a segment that he can call his own. His first election as an MLA was from the Kakinada Rural segment, and then he was shifted to Ramachandrapuram.”
“As far as Bose is concerned, Ramachandrapuram is considered his family’s fiefdom. Whether he wins or loses, his family has been nurturing the segment for more than three decades,” the leader added.
“Now, if neither he nor his son is given a ticket, the family will lose its hold on Ramachandrapuram and the constituency will slip out of their control. In that case, they will be left with no choice,” the leader noted.
“Both Bose and Venugopala Krishna are refusing to relent. Since both are from the same community, it is also a tricky situation for the party president to arrive at an amicable solution.”
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