Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is likely to make frequent visits to the districts for the next two years. He remained indoors for three years, mostly because of the Covid 19 pandemic and launched all his schemes from his camp office at Tadepalli.
The opposition accused him of staying in the ‘Tadepalli Palace’ and not coming out to meet people and see what is happening outside. With the Covid 19 easing out slowly, Jagan Mohan Reddy seems to have decided to come out of his ‘Tadepalli Palace’ and address public meetings in every district.
Sources say that he has more than a dozen cash benefit schemes for the people, at least one in every month. He used to transfer the cash to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts sitting in the camp office. But now he had made up his mind to go to the districts and make the cash transfer. He would then address a public meeting. This would give him an opportunity to hit back at the opposition and explain the welfare schemes of his government.
TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh have been addressing the media conferences every day making at least one allegation against Jagan Mohan Reddy. The media too is coming up with one story or the other against the chief minister and the state government every day.
Jagan Mohan Reddy had hardly responded to this criticism in the last three years. He never addressed a press conference except on the day of the 2019 results and when the then State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar postponed the local body elections without consulting the government in March 2020.
He is holding review meetings with the officials, where a video clip of his brief speech is released to the media. Similar video clips of his speeches whenever he transferred the benefit to the people under one scheme or the other are also circulated to the media.
He addressed the Independence Day celebrations and the Police Commemoration Day event where he spoke a little about his schemes and responded to the opposition criticism. Other than these, he hardly spoke in the last three years.
But, the next two years, Jagan Mohan Reddy is understood to have decided to go to the people and attack the opposition besides explaining his schemes. In a way, he is in election mode and would use every opportunity to make an election-like speech.
Interestingly, before the 2019 elections too, he took a break from the Assembly and was on the road for two years walking all the way from Idupulapaya to Itchapuram, which brought him to power. Now, he started his public meetings with one at Narasaraopet on Thursday and the other at Nandyala on Friday. This series would continue for the next two years, if information coming out from Tadepalli is to be believed.
