Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is telling his party leaders to focus on winning all 175 Assembly seats in the 2024 general election. He has justification for the top target. The first reason is the number of cash schemes that he had been rolling out for the last three years, benefiting almost every family in the state. The schemes were continued even during the lockdown and through the Covid pandemic.
The other reason is the party’s victory in Kuppam Assembly constituency which has been the fortress of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu. The TDP chief had been winning this seat since the 1989 election. He campaigned in the constituency in the 1989 and 1994 elections.
As he became the chief minister in 1995, he never visited the constituency to file his nomination during the election or to receive the declaration form after the election. In all, Chandrababu Naidu had won this constituency in seven consecutive elections.
Besides the MLA elections, the TDP had been doing well in the constituency in all the local body elections for all these years. But, perhaps for the first time, the TDP had lost all the local body elections.
The Jagan Mohan Reddy government had upgraded the Kuppam town into a municipality and now made it a revenue division headquarters in the district’s reorganisation. The present government had also constructed a primary health care centre, opened a junior college and provided new buildings for the school under the Nadu-Nedu programme.
With all these initiatives, the YSR Congress had won all the gram panchayats, mandal parishads and the municipal elections in the last year. Having won these elections, Jagan Mohan Reddy set his eyes on winning all 175 Assembly seats. “If we are winning Kuppam, why not the rest,” is what Jagan Mohan Reddy is telling his party leaders.
However, he is giving the target of 155 seats in his inner circle. While the 151 seats are from his own party, Jagan Mohan Reddy is firm on winning the four Assembly seats which were added to his party from the TDP. It is to be seen how far he would succeed in this mission 2024.
