Hyderabad: Nearly a decade after launching his party and staying in the opposition, YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) supremo Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy will take his oath as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP) at 12.23 pm in Amaravati on Thursday. Reddy stormed to power by defeating the former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) by winning a staggering 151 out of the total 175 assembly seats in AP.
According to the YSRCP, Telangana chief minister (and Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo) K. Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR), who will attend the event, and Jagan will together fly to New Delhi at 2.30 pm to attend the swearing-in ceremony of prime minister Narendra Modi afterwards.
Jagan and KCR flying together indicates a new shift in the relationship between AP and Telangana, which was off to a rocky start due to various issues that arose post the states’ bifurcation, especially due to the rivalry between KCR and Naidu. A TRS leader, who did not want to be identified, said that both the leaders are on good terms, and are likely to work together to iron out issues between the two states.
After Jagan formally becomes the chief minister, it is to be seen whether he reverses decisions taken by during Naidu’s tenure, and also probes into alleged irregularities (by YSRCP when it was in the opposition). The YSRCP supremo is also currently under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation for allegedly owning disproportionate assets he reportedly amassed in the past.
Jagan is also swearing-in as the chief minister almost 10 years after his father and former Congress chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR) died in a helicopter crash in 2009. YSR had also defeated Naidu twice, in the 2004 and 2009 elections (both assembly and Lok Sabha, then in joint AP). The young leader had then undertaken a state-wide tour to meet people and later, unhappy over not being made chief minister by the Congress high command, formed the YSRCP in 2011.
He unsuccessfully fought the TDP-BJP, then in an alliance, during the 2014 (assembly and Lok Sabha) elections. The YSRCP’s vote share was then just 2% lesser than the TDP’s, but it managed to win just 67 assembly seats, while the TDP and BJP won 102 and four seats. A YSRCP functionary, who did not want to be quoted, said that so far there is clarity on when Jagan will form his new cabinet.
