The writing on the wall is very clear for Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP in the upcoming assembly elections, said India’s reliable psephologist and founder of I-PAC, Prashant Kishor during his recent media interaction. PK unequivocally asserted that YSRCP is not just losing but will face a humiliating defeat in the 2024 elections because of YS Jagan’s haphazard policies and aimless money transfer schemes.
In his tete-a-tete with a leading news daily about Andhra Pradesh politics, Prashant Kishor revealed the reasons why the YSRCP’s graph went downhill in the last five years after coming to power in 2019 with a resounding majority. Kishor’s analysis of Jagan’s governance is spot on and accurate to the core because he got it absolutely right on various mistakes of Jagan’s five-year rule. He rightly pointed out that Jagan’s sole purpose of transferring money into the accounts of voters in the name of welfare schemes won’t fetch votes in Andhra Pradesh which has more than 50 percent of the urban population.
Kishor opined that Jagan made a colossal blunder by supporting the BJP at the centre at the cost of the state’s development all these five years. He pointed out that the same BJP is now trying to ally with the TDP which is likely to scuttle Jagan’s ambitions to secure another term of power.
Kishor also criticized that Jagan made a strategic mistake by blindly doling out money for a section of the people in the state without creating employment opportunities, income sources, investments etc. He said the idea of getting votes with cash transfer schemes will work in states with low per capita income and higher rural population but not in Andhra Pradesh with 50 percent urban population. He also flayed at Jagan’s political rhetoric that the upcoming elections are a class war between the Poor vs the Rich. Such rhetoric will work in states like Jharkhand and Bihar.
Kishor said a state like Andhra Pradesh needs the development of a well-planned capital, an influx of many companies, proper roads and other basic amenities for its people. But, Jagan Mohan Reddy neglected the state on all these issues and simply adopted the role of money provider to win the trust of the people. This is the biggest mistake committed by Jagan because it is going to cause his downfall in these elections.
Kishor said Jagan assumed the role of a provider instead of projecting himself as a visionary leader. He simply targeted his supporters who would vote for him in elections but ignored the majority of the population. As a leader, he should have concentrated on developing the state and improving the performance on various indices. He also came down heavily on Jagan’s style of borrowing crores of money to implement cash transfer schemes and ignoring the development activities.
Kishor also spoke about KCR’s defeat and drew a parallel between his style of governance to that of Jagan. He said even KCR did the same thing in the last five years and finally lost the recent elections. This will repeat with Jagan Mohan Reddy’s party in the coming elections, said Kishor.
Prashant Kishor once again clarified that he is not working for TDP as speculated by the media. I met Chandra Babu Naidu just as a courtesy and informed him that I am not working for YSRCP anymore, said Kishor.