Is AP Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy doing the same mistake that Chandrababu Naidu did before 2019? Will he end up making Nara Lokesh a hero the way Chandrababu made YS Jagan a hero? Why is YS Jagan, who wasn’t afraid of calling for the public hanging of Chandrababu, trying to impose curbs on the tours, meetings and public addresses of Nara Lokesh? Why this sense of fear and desperation?

Jagan clearly appears unnerved by the response that Nara Lokesh is eliciting wherever he is going. The TDP workers and sympathisers, who were confined to their homes, are coming into the open. His high-profile visits have become the talk of the town. All these appear to have unnerved YS Jagan Mohan Reddy so much that he has asked the administration to put spokes in Lokesh’s programmes. The police are imposing one restriction after the other on Lokesh Babu’s programmes in Andhra Pradesh.

It is worth recalling that while he was the chief minister, Chandrababu had betrayed similar kind of unease at YS Jagan’s forays to different places. He stopped Jagan when the latter tried to visit Vizag. As a result, Jagan became a hero and got lot of sympathy. In fact, these curbs were effectively used by Jagan to emerge as an alternative to Chandrababu. It now appears that YS Jagan is making the same mistake that Chandrababu committed. By trying to obstruct Lokesh, he is ending up making him a hero.

Lokesh is displaying unusual activism these days. He is rushing to any spot where a girl student gets attacked or a TDP man is assaulted. He is taking up various issues and is staging protests. This is galvanising the TDP workers, who were hitherto dispirited. By trying to stop Lokesh, Jagan is making him a hero. If the same trend continues, Lokesh may emerge as an alternative to YS Jagan in the days to come.