Hyderabad: For 47 year old Yedugiri Sandinti Jaganmohan Reddy the path to the Chief Minister’s chair was not full of roses. He had to pass through many trials and tribulations over the last decade, since the death of his father YS Rajasekhar Reddy in a helicopter crash, to realise his dream.

The lanky politician with ever smiling face even had to go to prison in connection with disproportionate assets, experience several ups and downs and even undertake a walk of more than 3000 kms across Andhra Pradesh before tasting the victory in an all out electoral battle against a much experienced and elder opponent Nara Chandrababu Naidu.

But in the end he stood tall in victory as greetings and good wishes poured in from all directions with his YSR Congress party sailing to a landslide victory. He not only vanquished the ruling Telugu Desam Party in the state assembly elections but also bagged almost all the 25 Lok Sabha seat in fight he fought single handed.

Jagan, a commerce graduate from Nizam college in Hyderabad and a budding businessman was almost a political greenhorn when his father and then Chief Minister Rajasekhar Reddy died in helicopter crash in September 2019. It was only four months earlier that YSR had led Congress party back to power for second consecutive term as Jagan had made his political debut by getting elected to Lok Sabha from family fiefdom of Kadapa.

When all looked honky dory and Jaganmohan Reddy was drawing ambitious plans for the expansion of his group of companies in varied sectors ranging from power, mining and infrastructure to media, he was rudely woken to harsh realities of life.

The trouble began even before his father was laid to rest. Ignoring the please and pressures from YSR family and legion of supporters the Congress high command refused to install him as the Chief Minister citing his lack of experience.

Soon it turned into a confrontation as Jagan set on a journey “Odarpu Yatra” to console the families whose members purportedly committed suicide out of shock over YSR’s death and Congress leadership asked him to stop.

An unhappy Jagan quit the Lok Sabha in 2010 and decided to chart his own political course. After launching a new regional party YSR Congress in 2011 he fought and won Lok Sabha by election from Kadapa with a huge margin of more than half a million votes.

His trouble continued to grow as seven cases of disproportionate assets were registered against him on the direction of the High Court after some political leaders approached the court. The cases, in which several bureaucrats and industrialists were also booked were probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Jagan had to spend several months in prison. Even today he has to appear before CBI court in Hyderabad every week.

His next major test was the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and formation of Telugu state. Strongly opposing it he went on fast unto death but it was ended after a week as his condition deteriorated. Again he and his mother Vijayamma resigned from Lok Sabha and assembly.

Though he fought the 2014 elections valiantly against the TDP-BJP alliance, his party lost by a whisker as the difference of votes between the two sides was less than two per cent.

Another highlight of his political career was his unprecedented 3000 kms walk across the state as a public contact program during which he interacted with cross sections of people and attracted huge crowds.

While playing his role as the leader of opposition in the state assembly and focusing his attention on the failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh, Jagan also made some strategic moves of getting close to the BJP. It finally led to break up of alliance between the TDP and the BJP.

Jagan’s campaign theme was recreating the welfare state his father had created in undivided Andhra Pradesh and promised to bring back “Rajanna Rajyam” (Rule of YSR) marked by the doles to all the weaker sections.

Since the break up with the BJP in March 2018 and walking out of UPA government problems only grew and became more complicated for the incumbent Chandrababu Naidu.

Though Naidu tried his best to recover the lost ground and blamed the Modi government at the Centre for his inability to fulfil all his promises including the construction of a world class capital city Amarvati, in the end he could not succeed in convincing the masses that he could deliver.

It is second time that Naidu has lost power during his four decade long political career. After serving as the Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh from 1995 till 2004, Naidu was ousted from power by YSR led Congress party. It had taken him another ten year long struggle in opposition to return to power in 2014. But at the ripe age of 69 years, it could have been very well his swan song. Though he has groomed his only son US returned Nara Lokesh as his political successor, the reign of the party will remain in the hands for some more time.

As TDP could not do much even in Lok Sabha, his dream of playing a king maker at the national level like he did in 1996-99 will also remain unfulfilled.