Jagan Mohan Reddy's Master Gamble For Andhra Pradesh Rests on Backward Classes

New Delhi: In what seems like a calculated move, YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy gave out 41 seats to the backwards castes in Andhra Pradesh for the upcoming Assembly elections. Fielding an equal number of people from the backward castes and from the Reddy’s, the community he belongs to, Jagan has ensured that no community is left unrepresented. Every vote is what he aims for and observers are calling this a masterstroke.

An analyst News18 spoke to said that the arithmetic is bound to work. “He has given an equal chance to every backward caste and not just the Kapus,” the analyst said. These have traditionally been the strongest vote bank for Chandrababu Naidu’s Telegu Desam Party. Notably, when Naidu and now independent candidate Pawan Kalyan were allies, the former relied on Kalyan to get him Kapu votes, which Kalyan did. Kalyan belongs to the Kapu community.

‘With Jagan fielding people not just from Kapu but also other communities, he has made sure that even if the Kapu votes go the Kalyan way, there will still be others to bank on,” the analyst noted, adding that Jagan still believes Kalyan and Naidu still have a strategic understanding.

Considering there is a 25% reservation, Jagan has strategically shifted primary focus from the Kapu community to the other backward classes. That said, he did, last year, promise Rs 10,000 crore corpus to the Kapu Corporation, which is 10 times more than what Naidu gave in 2016. Additionally, Naidu has also announced a 5% reservation for the community which makes up for about 26% of the state population.

Analyst K Nageshwar, however, feels that the gamble may not pay off. “If Congress tomorrow fields all its candidates from the backward castes, do you think they will vote for Congress? No. also, one has to understand that the backwards castes vote bank in itself is not a united one,” he told News18.

In Jagan’s list, of the 25 Lok Sabha candidates, seven were from backward classes, four Scheduled Castes and one Scheduled Tribe. Further, among the 175 Assembly candidates, 41 belonged to the backward classes and five to the Muslim community. Naidu has accommodated scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, Muslims in his list, too.

Caste has, for long, been a very strong political weapon in the state. Naidu only recently said that Jagan is trying to bring in caste into politics and disturbing the peaceful environment of the state. Jagan, on his part, has said that Naidu was the one making things dirty with caste politics.