Both instances involve a politician in power versus one out of power, each carrying old grudges. Here are some parallels.
On September 21, the Reddy-led YSR Congress government served a notice to demolish a riverfront villa near Amaravati that Naidu has rented, saying it was built after violating environmental norms.
A few weeks earlier, a state-owned building the former chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief had built alongside the rented villa to hear public grievances was razed to the ground.
Naidu was also put under house arrest along with son Nara Lokesh when they tried to join a rally against YSR Congress workers allegedly attacking TDP cadre.
Then came the news of the suicide of Kodela Siva Prasada Rao, a senior TDP leader and former Assembly Speaker. His family alleged he was being harassed by the Reddy government with a series of criminal cases. Now to Tamil Nadu of the early 2000s.
On the midnight of June 29, 2001, DMK chief M Karunanidhi was arrested at his home for allegedly siphoning off funds in the construction of flyovers. It was said to be an act of revenge by then CM Jayalalithaa. In 1996, Karunanidhi as chief minister had ordered a similar raid on the AIADMK chief’s home, where a lot of unaccounted gold and diamond jewellery was found. Jayalalithaa was convicted and spent six months in jail. Back to present-day Andhra Pradesh.
In August this year, Botsa Satyanarayana, the municipal administration minister, hinted at junking Naidu’s dream project — the Greenfield city of Amravati — saying the place was vulnerable to floods. The construction of buildings and roads in Amaravati has already been suspended. Reddy has also hinted at scaling down Naidu’s ambition of building a world-class city into a mere administrative capital and returning some land back to farmers, who had pooled over 34,000 acres for the construction of the city. Reddy alleged the previous Naidu government had coercively acquired land from many farmers. Now look at a similar development in Tamil Nadu eight years ago.
In August 2011, CM Jayalalithaa announced that Rs 1,200-crore Assemblycum-Secretariat complex, the dream project of Karunanidhi, would be turned into a medical college. She told the Assembly the project was “not fit for official use” and refused to go in.
Now back to Andhra Pradesh again. Earlier this month, ABN Andhra Jyothi and TV5, two news channels considered close to Naidu, were taken off the cable networks and Andhra Pradesh Fibre Grid that lets lakhs of households access internet, TV and phone connections at low tariffs.
In September 2011 too, Jayalalithaa had attempted to scuttle the dominance of Sun TV, owned by the Karunanidhi family, by nationalising the distribution of cable television signals through Arasu, the staterun cable operator.
“Like Jayalalithaa” “These parallels of vendetta politics in Andhra and Tamil Nadu makes one believe that Reddy is now possessed by the spirt of Jayalalithaa,” says Srinivasa Rao Manchala, a political analyst. He says the Reddy government’s attempts to scrap developmental and welfare programmes from Naidu’s time, including cancelling the Polavaram irrigation project and Machilipatnam port reflect not just hate politics, but also a strategy to hit at contractors close to Naidu.
There is some history behind all this. Reddy’s father YS Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR) and Naidu were fellow Congress workers from 1975 to 1983 and even used to be roommates, says Telakapalli Ravi, another political analyst. Then in 1983, Naidu joined TDP, his father-in-law NT Rama Rao’s party, and became a minister.
He then rose to the chief minister’s post in 1995 and was relected in 1999. On the other side, YSR too rose within the Congress and defeated Naidu to become the CM in 2004 and in 2009. YSR died in a helicopter crash soon after his second term began.
Kanna Laxminarayana, the BJP’s Andhra unit chief, blames both YSR Congress and TDP for misusing the bureaucracy and police to settle political scores and coerce defections.
During his term as CM, YSR, like his son appears to be doing now, ordered several probes against Naidu. However, nothing could be conclusively proven.
After YSR’s death, Jagan Reddy made a futile attempt to claim the CM’s chair. Subsequently, he rebelled and floated his own party — YSR Congress. Soon after, Congress and TDP leaders moved court seeking probe into alleged disproportionate assets of Jagan Reddy. He was arrested and sent to jail for 16 months. He managed to secure bail weeks before Andhra Pradesh’s bifurcation in June 2014.
However, with Naidu joining hands with BJP and Jana Sena in 2014, Jagan Reddy lost the state elections by a thin margin. Naidu then went on label Jagan Reddy as someone who had amassed wealth by misusing the office of his father. As a mark of protest, he boycotted the assembly proceedings during Naidu’s tenure.
Then this May, Jagan Reddy finally managed to achieve his dream of becoming the CM, taking advantage of the severed ties between TDP and BJP.
Colours of Revenge The revenge politics of Andhra Pradesh has certain unique features despite several similarities it shares with Tamil Nadu, says K Nageshwar, a former independent legislator. “It is only in these two states that politics is polarised between two regional parties headed by two personalities with long rivalries, leading to extreme levels of vendetta politics.”
However, caste polarisation in Andhra Pradesh — the Kammas leaning towards TDP and the Reddys towards YSR Congress — differentiate the state’s vendetta politics from that in Tamil Nadu, says Nageshwar. “Though caste politics is well entrenched in Tamil Nadu, you don’t see a caste polarisation between DMK and AIDMK.”
Another element aggravating vendetta in Andhra Pradesh is the misuse of bureaucracy — both in accumulating wealth and settling scores, says Ravi. In the past, CBI charge-sheeted several bureaucrats for allegedly aiding Jagan Reddy in amassing assets. The scale of polarisation of print and electronic media on political lines is another unique feature of politics in Andhra Pradesh.
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