YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy’s decision to keep away most of his relatives and lobbyists while distributing party tickets for the ensuing general elections is being viewed as a good sign for the party.
According to one of his die-hard fans, his father and former chief minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy had never encouraged the relatives.
Not many had heard about his family members, except his father Raja Reddy, brother Y S Vivekananda Reddy and at the most his cousin E C Gangi Reddy.
But after the death of YSR, many of his relatives started flocking Jagan and established themselves as a strong lobby.
Even Jagan, because of his political immaturity, depended too much on his relatives and made some of them MPs and MLAs. Many of them, because of their selfishness, were responsible directly or indirectly to the party’s debacle in 2014.
Now with the general elections are fast approaching again, the same relatives began lobbying for tickets and dominating the party activities.
But Jagan, who has matured as a strong leader in the last five years, realized the futility of these relatives and decided to keep them at bay, while issuing party tickets to only winning horses.
“Many of Jagan’s relatives who had been calling shots in the party all these days, could not even win in their respective seats, but they tried to influence him in issuing tickets to their followers. Many of the genuine party workers and leaders could not get appointment with Jagan even for three minutes, thanks to his relatives who denied them permission to meet him,” a YSRC leader lamented.
He said though there was nothing wrong in encouraging efficient relatives like what Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had done, but unfortunately, all those who were flocking Jagan were inefficient and useless stuff.
“There are many leaders who are far more capable than these relatives,” he said.
Appreciating Jagan for denying ticket to his uncle Y V Subba Reddy, the YSRC leader said if Jagan adopts a tough stand against nepotism, it would fetch excellent results for the party.