Isolated, feeling ignored, YSRCP leader Manikya Vara Prasad at crossroads of his political career

He cannot decide what to do after being left high and dry in the electoral field.

“I do not know what I should do now. I will wait for a response from the party on what it intends to do with me. I am also answerable to my party workers,” Vara Prasad told South First.

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From Congress to TDP

His halcyon days began when he was in Congress. He was elected to the erstwhile AP Assembly from Tadikonda in 2004.

After he won again in 2009, the late YS Rajasekhar Reddy inducted him into his cabinet and appointed him the Minister of Secondary Education. He was later entrusted with the portfolios of Rural Development and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

After the state’s bifurcation, he did not contest the 2014 elections for Andhra Pradesh. Following the elections, he joined the TDP, which appointed him to the Legislative Council in 2017.

In 2019, he contested in the Assembly election from Prathipadu on a TDP ticket but lost the election.

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Political fallout

He joined the YSRCP in March 2020 and resigned from the Council membership. Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy immediately appointed him to the Council for the remaining period of his term, which ended in March 2023.

Though Sucharita is not from Tadikonda, she was hand-picked after she is understood to have wept inconsolably before CM Jagan on how some of her supporters back in her Prattipadu constituency had turned against her.

Her tears seemed to move Jagan, and he shifted her to Tadikonda. In the process, he forgot or neglected to take Vara Prasad into confidence, railing him to no end.

Manikya Vara Prasad, who saw the writing on the wall, tried contacting the chief minister but could not.

Subsequently, he sought an appointment with Jagan by appealing to him at a public meeting, ruffling the feathers of YSRCP’s top leaders. As a result, he was further isolated.

Vara Prasad said he joined the YSRCP only after the party invited him.

“I did not go after them. After being taken into the YSRC, I was initially treated well. After joining the party, I resigned from the TDP membership of the Council. Jagan Mohan Reddy again sent me to the Council for the remaining three years. And that is where the buck stopped,” he said.

The way Manikya Vara Prasad had been handled hurt his psyche. He said he had been treated shabbily.

“I do not mind if the chief minister gives the ticket to someone else. But since Tadikonda is my native constituency, I should have been consulted. I was not consulted in all the decisions that were taken for the seat. The chief minister should have invited me and told me how he would make amends for not fielding me. I should have at least known what consolation prize I would get. He didn’t do that either. I was further isolated when I sought an appointment with him through a public forum,” he said.

Manikya Vara Prasad has adopted a wait-and-watch approach for now. “I will wait and see if the party leadership reaches out to me,” he said, adding that he has friends in TDP, implying that he might not hesitate to move over to where the grass is greener.

(Edited by Shauqueen Mizaj)