For the first time, YSRCP president and Opposition leader Jaganmohan Reddy appears to have been shaken by the defections.
He has dispatched his close aide Vijay Sai Reddy to Vizianagaram district to persuade Bobbili MLA Sujay Krishna Rangarao against quitting the party. Rangarao, peeved at the admission and later importance given to former PCC president and his arch rival Botsa Satyanarayana, is said to have decided to quit the party to join the ruling TDP. Except in the case of Bhuma Nagireddy, MLA from Allagadda, Jagan has never dispatched any emissary to other MLAs for mediation. In the case of Nagireddy, Vijay Sai Reddy, Ramakrishna Reddy and YV Subbarao mediated between the Jagan and Nagireddy. They spent a whole day with Nagireddy but failed to stop Reddy from crossing over TDP.
Jagan was under the impression that that he could invoke the anti-defection law against the turncoats and get them disqualified by hook or by crook. But, what dashed the hopes of YSRCP boss was the superior floor strategy of TDP president Chandrababu Naidu. Though Jagan used entire budget session Assembly to ensure that the defectors violated the whip. He issued whips times, moved two no-confidence motions and demanded division on the passage of appropriation bill. But, the defectors completely avoided the session and Jagan could not get enough time to execute the whip. His plan fizzled out. Having lost hope that could get them disqualified under the provisions of Anti-defection law, Jagan climbed down from his stubborn position and dispatched emissaries to Sujay Krishna Rangarao, who chose YSRC before 2014 instead of TDP, when he wanted to quit Congress. Vijay Sai Reddy, accompanied by district party president Kolagatla Veerabhadra Rao, went to the residence of Rangarao. But, his followers told Reddy that the MLA was not available at home. It simply shows that the mediation is unlikely to yield any result.
In the meantime, Jagan spewed fire on chief minister Chandrababu Naidu for engineering defections. After paying floral tributes to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar today at Lotus Pond, he addressed the party workers. He said Naidu had shielded defectors as had no confidence in getting the defectors re-elected. ” The CM has made mockery of democracy by engineering defection and shielding them from disqualification. Admitting defectors from other parties without seeking fresh mandate is an assault on the spirit of the constitution and Dr Ambedkar, who was the chairman of the drafting committee,” Jagan said.
