CBN’s suprise strategy puts Jagan in a huge dilemma

Considering the age factor and health issues of TDP national president and former Chief Minister of AP Chandra Babu Naidu, the upcoming 2024 assembly elections can be termed as a swansong for his four-decade-long political journey. Before he passes the baton onto his son Nara Lokesh, CBN wants to get back into power not just to resuscitate his Telugu Desam Party but also to revive the lost glory of the state after Jagan Mohan Reddy’s inefficient tenure from 2019-2024. He has been making aggressive political maneuvers for the past few months in an attempt to dethrone Jagan and his party.

The current strategies that are being adopted by Naidu are quite contrary to his regular style of politics which he did until 2019. This time Naidu seems all prepared to face the poll battle quite effectively. By declaring seats two months in advance to announcing freebies during his public meetings, Naidu appeared to have put Jagan Mohan Reddy in a huge dilemma.

Political experts predicted that Janasena would get a good chunk of seats in the alliance. Even YSRCP wanted Naidu to give more number of seats to Janasena. This is because they knew that defeating candidates from Janasena, who are usually not financially so strong, would be much easier for the YSRCP contestants than to face the experienced and rich TDP candidates in many constituencies.

Jagan and other YSRCP leaders are reportedly shocked with the way Naidu confined Janasena to just 24 seats out of the 175 seats. Moreover, Naidu allotted seats to those bigwigs who could spend huge money during elections and counter the heavyweights of the ruling party. This left Jagan in a spot of bother because he will need to reassess the incharges he named so far and once again make changes to field stronger candidates against the alliance.

Had Naidu allotted some 70-80 seats to Janasena, it would have been beneficial to the YSRCP because it could try to win the majority out of them with money and power and thereby negate the chances of the alliance to form the government. Now, Janasena was allotted those seats only where it got strong cadre support and potential chances of winning are on the higher side. If Janasena wins 15 out of these seats and TDP wins half of the remaining, there are good chances for the alliance to form the government.

Naidu claimed that he announced the first list after taking feedback from more than one crore people through various surveys. This is a mammoth task and will have a huge impact on the outcome of the final result of these elections.

What is the biggest shock to Jagan is Naidu’s surprise move to announce candidates so early before the elections. This is the first time Naidu finalized the candidates before the election schedule. This is a brave move by Naidu and this could make a big difference in the outcome of this elections.

It would be interesting to see how Jagan counters Naidu’s aggressive strategies.