The defeat of YSR Congress party candidate Y S Vivekanand Reddy in the just concluded MLC elections under local bodies’ quota has come as a rude shock to many.
It was a shock to party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy himself, because as many as 24 voters out of 39 voters in the local bodies belonging to YSR Congress party in his Pulivendula assembly constituency cross-voted for TDP candidate B Tech Ravi.
Definitely it is a big setback to Jagan and the actual behind-the-scene episode for the debacle of YSRC is coming to light now.
According to the reports, it was Vivekanand Reddy’s own brother and Jagan’s uncle Y S Manohar Reddy who had played “Brutus” in ditching the party by succumbing to the money power of the TDP.
For the last few months, Manohar Reddy has been feeling suffocating and ignored in the party, though his wife Prameelamma is municipal chairperson of Pulivendula and his son Y S Avinash Reddy is the Lok Sabha member of Kadapa. There was a talk that Manohar Reddy might even quit the YSRC, but he denied the same.
Taking advantage of his disgruntlement, the TDP leadership lured him quietly by offering Rs 100 crore pipeline contract, besides another Rs 24 crore for securing 24 votes of YSRC in favour of the TDP candidate in the MLC polls.
Manohar Reddy fell into the trap of TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu who executed the plan perfectly with the help of minister Ganta Srinivas Rao, MP C M Ramesh and MLA Adinarayan Reddy. He turned a covert and managed polling of 24 votes in favour of the TDP candidate, much to Jagan’s shock.
The question is why Jagan could not do anything when Naidu was undertaking the covert operation. May be he thought his uncle would get exposed on his own, as he knew that if not now, Manohar Reddy would ditch him some other day. So, the sooner the better, Jagan thought.
However, he was a bit over-confident and did not expect that there would be such a massive cross voting in Pulivendula alone!
