The spate of defections from Telugu Desam Party into YSR Congress in the last few days, particularly ahead of the local body elections, has definitely come as a rude shock to the party and its president N Chandrababu Naidu.
It is not that Naidu was unaware of the disgruntled souls in the party and the pressures on them to join the ruling YSR Congress.
Being a seasoned politician, he must be definitely aware of it, but he did not expect that there would be such a mass exodus of leaders one after the other in a short span of time before the elections.
What is more, Naidu was confident that at least some strong leaders like Satish Reddy of Pulivendula, Karanam Balaram of Chirala and P Ramasubba Reddy of Jammalamadugu would continue in the party.
Now, it is pretty evident that the defections are happening as part of YSR Congress party’s pre-planned strategy to hit the TDP below the belt. Apparently, YSRC has chosen those areas where the TDP still has some presence like in Guntur, Prakasam, Kurnool, Anantapur.
Of course, the TDP has no strength in Kadapa, but YSRC has decided to wipe out the TDP completely from the district by attracting leaders like Ramasubba Reddy and Satish Reddy.
According to the latest talk, the YSRC is now focussing on Visakhapatnam, where the TDP had won four assembly seats. This is a sort of heartburn for YSRC leadership. If it can attract at least two MLAs and their huge cadre base, the TDP would get weakened gradually.
Since there are no immediate elections after the local body polls, the YSRC is engineering defections from the TDP in a big way.
“It will take a long time for the TDP to recover in these areas, since Naidu has not developed alternative leadership. By next elections, the aim of the YSRC is to see that the TDP would have little or no presence in at least seven out of 13 districts in the state,” a political observer from Amaravati said.