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ANDHRA PRADESH |
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YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy sent to judicial remand till June 11
In court on Monday, the CBI counsel accused Jagan of not cooperating and sought
14-day custody to interrogate him further
TS Sudhir
Hyderabad
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Photo: Shailendra Pandey
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The heat blazing at 43 degree Celsius hardly seemed to bother Sriramulu, a villager from Macherla in Guntur district. He seemed more keen on catching every word, every mannerism of Y S Jaganmohan Reddy who was indulging in YSR-like speak at his election meeting on Thursday. In another few hours, he was to drive to Hyderabad to present himself for interrogation at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“This may be my last chance to hear him if the government arrests him tomorrow,” Sriramulu explained.
It won’t be the government, it will be the CBI, I corrected him to which he retorted with a cynical “it is the same, anna”.
Don't the charges of corruption against Jagan bother you as a voter, I probed further. “Who is not corrupt, tell me. At least his father, while he was there, gave us something in return,” he said.
Another villager, a shopkeeper, Pentaiah, says he disapproves of Congress and Telugu Desam leaders calling YSR names. “I have always been a TDP voter. But I do not like the manner in which a dead man is being vilified and called corrupt and a robber. This is not right. In our culture, we don't speak ill of those who are no more.''
This typical Indian sentiment combined with Jagan's personalised campaign of visiting every village, tiny habitations instead of addressing people herded into a public meeting venue, holding their hands, hugging them, kissing them no doubt has fetched him new admirers.
“That is his style. That is how he behaves. In fact, that is the way all politicians should be in this age of 24x7 television news. You cannot be a touch-me-not politician any more,'' says Asaduddin Owaisi, Hyderabad MP.
“What helps Jagan also is the goodwill for the welfare agenda politics pursued by YSR,” explains political analyst K Nageshwar. “He is reaping the benefits of all the schemes like Arogyasree, 108 ambulance, pension scheme, housing scheme that YSR launched as chief minister. Though it was the Congress government that introduced these schemes, they are associated only with YSR and the ruling party has been unable to convince the people that it is the party that did the work for them, and not YSR alone.”
In Hyderabad, it was a working weekend for most of the city police, busy sanitising the route taken by Jagan from his Lotus Pond locality residence in Banjara Hills to the Dilkusha Guest House, which serves as the camp office of the CBI. And move around in sensitive areas to sniff out potential troublemakers who would throw a stone for a price.
That he would be arrested was a foregone conclusion. But it was important to get the timing and the reasons why he was being taken into custody absolutely right. CBI sources claim Jagan's “I don't know”, “I was not in the government”, “I was staying in Bangalore” response to stonewall queries frustrated the CBI. And it’s precisely for that reason why in court on Monday, the CBI counsel accused Jagan of not cooperating and sought 14-days custody to interrogate him further. The court eventually sent Jagan to judicial custody till 11 June.
Beyond the courtroom drama, there was street theatre as well. Jagan's family members led by his mother Vijayalakshmi (called Vijayamma by the party cadre) first sat on dharna outside the CBI camp office at Dilkusha guest house. And when they were picked up from there, a la Karunanidhi in 2001, they continued their dharna outside their home.
The family knows this is unlikely to influence Jagan's brush with the law; their eye is more on the voters in the one Lok Sabha and 18 assembly constituencies who cast their verdict on June 12. The gameplan is to fight the legal battle, politically, by trying to win as many seats as possible and then project the people's verdict as exoneration of Jagan's alleged crimes. Already by repeatedly dubbing it as a conspiracy and vendetta politics, YSR Congress is hoping to tap the sympathy vote.
Cabinet minister D Sridhar Babu accuses Jagan of carrying out a misinformation campaign. “For the past one and a half years, he is blaming the government for just about everything. Everyone in Andhra Pradesh and India knows about it,” he says.
June 15, the day the by-election results will be declared, could be a critical day. “If the YSR Congress riding on some kind of a sympathy wave sweeps the bypolls, it is bound to make many Congress and TDP leaders nervous. They would have to take a call on whether or not to jump ship. After all, it is a question of their political future. The Congress has to manage that crisis if it has to survive,'' says Nageshwar.
There are problems for Jagan too. Like most regional parties, he is the only face of his party. And his absence will hit his young outfit hard. His mother, barring her emotional appeal, will not be able to sustain a long-term campaign if Jagan stays in custody for long. Congress sources say that is precisely the gameplan. Keep Jagan in and gradually make it a case of out of sight, out of mind. The best bet for the ruling party would be to revive itself politically during the period Jagan is not on the scene.
That would mean ensuring the corruption charges stick on Jagan in the public consciousness. Already Congress leaders on the campaign trail have been asking Jagan to explain how he earned his millions. How from income tax returns in 2004 that showed property worth Rs 1.74 crore, did he declare assets worth Rs 77 crores in 2009 before the Lok Sabha elections and then a whopping Rs 365 crores in 2011?
The Congress would have to put its house in order as well. It has to ensure that Jagan is not able to play the Pied Piper to its MLAs and cadre, curb infighting and if the party sees a ray of hope in Kiran Kumar Reddy, it needs to empower him to take decisions instead of him having to dial D for Delhi on every occasion.
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