Reaching out

The Andhra Congress will have to recapture YSRs legacy through smart governance.

From January 24 to mid-February,the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh plans to run a mass contact prog-ramme called Rachcha banda,which its leaders hope will be an opportunity for the beneficiaries of the states many welfare programmes to give a bit of direct feedback. The programme was closely associated with Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy; indeed,the helicopter crash in which he died happened as he was en route from Hyderabad to Chittoor district to participate in several village-level meetings as part of the campaign. Its not surprising that the Congresss priority is to recapture some of the magic of the YSR brand; whats surprising

is that it has taken so long. For over a year,it has passively allowed the late leaders son,Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy,to monopolise his legacy,with the result that the state Congress is demoralised and dispirited.

Andhras importance to the Congress cannot be overestimated. Not only has it been,both in 2004 and 2009,the source of a solid bloc of southern seats in Lok Sabha; but it has consistently been the incubator of new variants of the social-sector schemes with which the national party has tried to associate itself. Under YSR,probably the Congresss only major state leader with a power base completely independent of Delhi,the party successfully positioned itself as an efficient provider of welfare while not neglecting Hyderabad,as the giant Outer Ring Road project,one of Indias largest road projects,shows. After YSRs death,the Congress lost a political battle with its own worse side; rather than allowing for the possibility of another YSR-like alternative power centre to develop,chief ministers were handpicked from Delhi with community equations and loyalty considerations front-and-centre. If that wasnt enough,Central bungling on Telangana

has further divided and paralysed its state unit.

Seen in this context,an attempt to associate the current government in Hyderabad with the implementation and improvement of schemes for which YSRs son hopes to get credit,is an unsurprising political move. Yet the bane of Andhra politics,and a trap that the Congress is capable of falling into,is competitive populism. To beat Jagan and Chandrababu Naidus Telugu Desam Party the Congress should remember that YSR got ahead by smartly reworking social-sector governance. More of that is what is needed.