After YSR

For two weeks now,the crowds arriving daily at Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s house in Hyderabad have numbered in the thousands,on some days as many as 20,000. Most do not conceal the fact that their journey,often from remote parts of Andhra Pradesh,has been facilitated or even motivated by local Congress politicians. And a steady refrain amongst them is surprise that Reddy has not yet been made chief minister. The daily spectacle is perhaps less a statement about the strength of Reddy’s candidature as it is about the place of his father,Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s place in the state’s polity. Yet,in assembling so day after day,they must alert the Congress party to its unfinished business in settling the succession issue in Andhra Pradesh.

The call the party has to take is this: when does this daily gathering become less about paying tribute to a lost leader and more about unsettling the administrative arrangement in the state? The Congress’s dilemma is how to fill the absence left by YSR. He had a distinctly personalised style of leadership. His charismatic ways incrementally overshadowed his cabinet and state party unit. But he also used them to cut through the red tape and deliver on promises of healthcare,housing and cheap foodgrain and to lead a sustained and focused security campaign against the Naxalites. So,this year he was credited with not just getting the party returned to power in the state,but also sending the Congress’s biggest contingent,state-wise,to the new Lok Sabha.

There is,certainly,the very valid question whether Reddy Jr,still fresh in politics,should be an automatic successor to his father. But for the Congress it is also about assessing how to read the legacy of one of its most successful political leaders this decade. Is it just about persona,about finding a replacement who’d reassure YSR’s considerable band of supporters? Or is it also about taking stock of the administrative challenges Andhra Pradesh faces? Those challenges,at the least,suggest that leaving the leadership issue so open would be not just unseemly but also damaging.