Soon after coming to power in Andhra Pradesh in May 2019, YSR Congress party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy introduced a novel concept of village volunteers with an objective of taking the benefits of his government’s welfare schemes to the doorsteps of the common man.
Right from pensions to essential commodities, these volunteers are delivering them to the people at their doorsteps.
The volunteers’ system has also helped the government during the Coronavirus pandemic in conducting fever survey and also in vaccination programme.
In the local body elections, too, these volunteers came in handy for the party to win more than 80 per cent of the gram panchayats and 99 per cent of municipalities.
Even in the zilla parishad and mandal parishad elections, whose results are still awaited, these volunteers were of great help to the party.
So far so good. But the YSRC party leaders at the grassroots level are not happy with the village and ward volunteers’ system, which they feel, has become a parallel political system.
The party leaders at the village and mandal level are feeling left out in taking up the welfare schemes, with volunteers dominating them.
“We put in a lot of efforts in bringing the party to power and sacrificed a lot for the party before the elections, hoping that we can get our works done at the local level. But with the introduction of volunteers’ system, nobody is caring for us. Even the local police are caring a damn for us,” a YSRC leader at the mandal level lamented.
The Jagan Mohan Reddy government is concentrating only on welfare schemes spending the entire budget only for them.
What is worse, the government is going in for huge borrowings to implement these schemes.
As a result, there are hardly any developmental works at the village level, where the local party leaders would have a say.
This was not the case in the past, whether it was during the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy regime or that of Chandrababu Naidu.
The ruling parties used to help the local leaders grow financially by entrusting them with some or other developmental works, small or big.
Setting aside the rationale behind such strategy, it was essential to keep the party strong at the grassroots level. But this is not happening during the Jagan regime.
Even if some works are allotted somewhere in the state, the local leaders are hesitating to take up the works because they are not sure when they would get the bills.
The party ranks are questioning why they should suffer losses despite their party being in power.
They are of the view that the volunteers’ system has been ruining the party at the village and mandal level, as it resulted in some kind of apathy and despair in the party cadre.
“Because of these volunteers, we are losing contact with the people. Where is the need for the party, if all the works are entrusted to the volunteers?” they are asking the government.
Since the local leaders and cadre are important in mobilising the voters to the polling stations, the present system is definitely breaking this link between the party and the people.
This was admitted by senior party leaders like Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy but he said the volunteers’ system was only to help the government to effectively implement the welfare schemes.
Unless the leadership takes corrective measures in this direction, the party is going to suffer heavily in the coming years, say political analysts.