Jagan's victory set to increase challenges in Andhra: Congress

suchithkc


New Delhi, May 13 : The massive victories of Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and his mother Y.S. Vijyalaxmi in Andhra Pradesh by-elections are set to increase challenges in the state for the Congress which is already in a quandary over demand for a separate Telangana state, party sources said Friday.
The sources said that Jaganmohan, who retained the Kadapa parliamentary seat with a margin of over five lakh votes, will use the momentum generated by the victories to expand and consolidate his electoral base.
Vijayalaxmi bagged Pulivendula assembly seat with a margin of 85,191 votes, breaking the record of her late husband and chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who won only two years ago by 68,681 votes.
The Congress sources said the demand for Telangana is likely to resurface as party leaders were lying low due to by-elections in the state and assembly polls to four major states. The Congress leadership has conveyed to its leaders in Telangana not to queer the pitch over the issue and allow the government to work out an acceptable solution to the vexed demand.
They said that Jaganmohan will continue his rallies in memory of his father and the Congress would suffer embarrassment if party legislators join him.
Andhra Pradesh has been contributing the largest number of MPs to the Congress kitty in the past two Lok Sabha polls and any weakening of the party in the southern state does not augur well for its national aspirations.
Jaganmohan had floated his own YSR Congress party earlier this year. His party leaders said that Jaganmohan's victory from Kadapa by a record margin had proved that the party leader was the real inheritor of legacy of his father.
'They were 17 ministers deployed in Kadapa to ensure victory of Congress but the party candidate lost his deposit,' a leader of Jaganmohan's party said.