Karri Padmasri and Balli Kalyana Chakravarthy resigned from the party and the Legislative Council, a day after Beda Mastan Rao and Mopidevi Venkataramana resigned from the YSRCP and the Upper House.
Published Sep 01, 2024 | 12:00 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 01, 2024 | 12:00 PM
The YSRCP is bleeding, much worse than the BRS did in Telangana after the Assembly elections last year.
On Saturday, 31 August, two more YSRCP MLCs quit former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s company, taking the total number of members quitting the Upper House of the Indian Parliament to three.
Karri Padmasri and Balli Kalyana Chakravarthy resigned from the party and the Legislative Council also. Their decision came within 24 hours of two Rajya Sabha members, Beda Mastan Rao and Mopidevi Venkataramana, had resigned from the YSRCP and the Upper House.
On 28 August, YSRCP MLC Pothula Sunitha triggered the resignations, by leaving the party and the Legislative Council.
Padmasri had five more years left while Chakravarthy was left with three years. Padmasri was nominated to the council under the Governor’s quota while Chakravarthy was elected to the council under the MLAs’ quota. The two council members handed over their resignations to the chairman of the council in the appropriate format and requested he accept them.
The 58-member Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council already has three vacancies. Of the 55 seats, the YSRCP has 42 members, TDP nine, Jana Sena one, PDF two and independent one. With the resignation of the three MLCs, the YSRCP’s strength has come down to 39.
According to sources, Padmasri of Kakianda left the YSRCP unable to play second fiddle to former MLA Dwarampudi Chandrasekhar Reddy. She seemed to have not made up her mind whether to join the TDP or the BJP.
For Chakravarthy, joining the TDP would be like a return home since his father Durga Rao was in that party for a long time before joining the YSRCP and became the Tirupati MP in 2019. After his demise, Jagan Mohan Reddy took Chakravarthy into the Council. He is expected to join the TDP soon.
After the YSRCP suffered the hardest fall in the recent Assembly elections, there were few survivors. They were also looking for safe shores.
The destination for all them has been the TDP. The TDP, along with its allies the Jana Sena and BJP, has a brute majority, as the YSRCP could win just 11 seats in the 175-member Assembly.
The TDP-led NDA has no dearth of MLAs. But the TDP has been looking forward to increase its strength in the Legislative Council as well as in the Rajya Sabha. At the moment, any MLC or Rajya Sabha member would be welcome to the TDP. The yellow party has no representation in the Upper House.
The kind of hemorrhage in the YSRCP has similarities with that of the BRS after the latter’s unexpected debacle in the November elections in Telangana.
The migration started after the fall of BRS. The total rout of the party in the Lok Sabha elections further spurred the defections.
In Telangana, BRS MLAs who had quit the party joined the Congress because Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has been keen on shoring up the party’s strength in the House.
With just 64 seats in the Assembly, plus its ally CPI’s one, the Congress appeared vulnerable to any high-voltage poaching game by the BRS or BJP might attempt.
After the Assembly elections, the Congress opened its door. Taking the cue, BRS MLAs walked over to their new home. So far, 10 BRS MLAs have joined the Congress. The BRS filed disqualification petitions before the high court and the Speaker, and they were yet be adjudicated.
The defections seemed to have stopped from the BRS to the Congress, thanks to the Anti-defection Act and the BRS leaders vowing to take the turncoats to task.
The BRS’s magic began waning after it lost the Assembly elections. Its vote share fell by 10.52 percent to 37.35 percent and the seat count came down to 39 which further went down to 38 with one legislator dying in a road accident. The Congress won the seat in the by-election as a result of which its count went up to 65.
In the Lok Sabha election, the BRS was totally wiped out as it lost all its nine seats, and its vote share fell to 16.68 percent from 41.71 percent.
But in Andhra Pradesh, the desertions taking place seem to be only the beginning. The YSRCP still has nine Rajya Sabha members and 39 MLCs. The question of how many of them would move away from Jagan Mohan Reddy in search of greener pastures and how many would stick with him in his hour of tribulation remains to be seen.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
(South First is now on WhatsApp and Telegram)
