While his opponents Mr. Naidu promising to transform new state into Singapore and Kiran Kumar Reddy assuring to restore the Telugu pride, but Jagan seems to have a better connect with people by addressing their day-to-day and livelihood issues. Being the son of pro-farmer leader YSR, seems to give him an edge in farmer community across Krishna, Godavari, Nellore, Kurnool and Cuddapah and also addresses issues like waiving of loans of weavers and assures good support prices for farmer’s produce and also thinking of buidling houses for poor and downtrodden.
Along with his support base among Muslims, Dalits, Christians, of course he has his own strong base- Reddys. Jagan Mohan Reddy seems to on a stronger wicket in comparison to his opponents. Even though, numerous corruption cases filed against him, people are turning out in large numbers to his rallies and have they pardoned for his white-collared crimes. Jagan has consolidated his positions in 58 seats in Rayalaseema, is now concentrating on 124-odd seats in rest of Andhra and also using caste card and putting up candidates from Kapu’s, Reddy and BC’s, to shore up his winning chances in fertile Andhra. Already has weaned away a bunch of Congress voters and even his frequent ‘ordarpu yatras, unmindful of lot of criticism since he wanted to stay connected and the midst of people and this ‘strategy’ seems to have enhanced his vote shares in various surveys, show his party’s fortunes soaring.
If Jagan continue to harp on his young age and ridicules his opponent Naidu as old and with pro-poor schemes and invoking the legacy of his father, might change his fortunes in 2014 since he has suffered lot with court cases and spent considerable time in jail. Will voters overlook his corruption charges and give him the mantle for his populous policies? That’s definitely a million dollar question.
