Jagan Mohan Reddy

The YSR Congress bagged 151 of the 175 seats in the state Assembly in 2019, decimating the TDP headed by N Chandrababu Naidu, who became the first chief minister of the state after it was bifurcated to carve out Telangana five years ago.

YSRC won 22 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats. The win must have also been sweet for another reason. It also signified the continuous free fall in Andhra Pradesh of the Congress (down to 1.29% vote share from 40.72% in 2009) — the party that cast aside Jagan, setting him off on his solitary path.

In its internal calculations, the YSRCP had thought it would get 100-110 seats out of 175 in the recent Assembly polls. With 2014 in mind, when it had expected to win but was bested by Naidu, it also kept expectations low. The final tally of 151 constituencies, plus 22 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats, surprised even them, admits a senior YSRCP MLA. “We did not anticipate such huge silent support for Jagan.”

Exactly a decade ago, then a businessman in his prime 30s, Jagan was based in Bengaluru, running real estate firms and power projects. One day, “out of the blue”, according to him, his father and Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy asked him to contest the May 2009 Lok Sabha elections from the family pocketborough of Kadapa. Jagan had no exposure to politics, not even in his father’s campaign.

On September 2, 2009, three months after being re-elected to power, YSR died in a chopper crash. “The initial shock gave a wave to a chorus from YSR supporters and Congress loyalists to make Jagan the CM. But the pressure exerted on this even before YSR’s funeral upset (then Congress president) Sonia Gandhi, who refused to say anything,” says long-time friend Bhuma Karunakar Reddy.