Campaign for making YSR's son chief minister

Within hours of the official confirmation on Thursday that chief minister Y S RajasekharaReddy had indeed died in a helicopter crashin the forests of Kurnool district a day earlier, a public clamour and a silent campaign has begun for making YSR’s son and Kadapa Congress MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy the next CM of the state.

While several senior leaders including a Rajya Sabha member are said to be carrying out the silent campaign, several MPs, MLAs, party leaders and workers who had assembled at the Secretariat, the CM’s camp office and Gandhi Bhavan (state Congress headquarters) publicly demanded that Jagan be made CM.

At the CM’s camp office, which houses the YSR residence and where his body was expected to arrive later in the day, at least 22 Congress MPs told reporters that they wanted Jagan to be the next CM and that they would submit a memorandum to this effect to the Congress high command. The MPs included Lagadapati Rajagopal, Anjan Kumar Yadav, G Sukhender Reddy, Suresh Sheckar, Nandi Yellaiah, Sarve Satyanarayana, P Prabhakar and L Rajaiah.

Congress workers, who had pitched up tents at various major intersections of the city, held up portraits of YSR and shouted slogans in favour of Jagan as CM. Sources told TOI that a silent campaign is also on within a section of the party to ensure that Jagan succeeds his father.

Thirty-six-old Jagan is a first time MP and is only a little over 100 days old in politics. The sources said the group that is campaigning for Jagan as CM is doing so because it wants the status quo to continue, by which they can ensure that their interests are not destabilized with the death of YSR.

But analysts were aghast at the campaign. "How shameless can they be? YSR's body has not arrived in Hyderabad and these selfish fellows are lobbying for YSR's son so that their interests are not affected," a political analyst said.

ANDHRA CM YSR REDDY DIES IN | CHOPPER CRASH

The helicopter was traced in mangled state on Rudrakonda hill, 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool..




Chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, known better as YSR, died in a helicopter crash on Thursday after his helicopter carrying him went missing over a dense forest area dominated by Maoist rebels.

Bodies of YSR Reddy and four others werer found, according to PTI.

The helicopter was traced in mangled state on Thursday on Rudrakonda hill, 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool.

The state-owned twin engine, seven-seater helicopter, Bell-430, he was flying in disappeared over the Nallamalla forest area in heavy rains at 9.35am on Wednesday, about an hour after it started, state officials said.

The chief minister was on his way from Hyderabad to Chittoor in Rayalaseema region in southern Andhra Pradesh on an official programme.

Reddy, 60, a powerful politician who had never lost an election during his 30-year political career, led the Congress party to victories in both state and Parliament elections in May, and was just months into his second term as chief minister.

He had won his first term as chief minister in 2004, defeating N. Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party, or TDP, son-in-law of the popular actor-politician and former chief minister N. T. Rama Rao.

Reddy, a second generation Roman Catholic Christian, was born on 8 July 1949 in Pulivendula, a small town in the state’s Kadapa district. Before taking a plunge into politics in 1978, Reddy served as medical officer at CSI Campbell Hospital in Jammalamadugu in Kadapa district after graduating in medical science from the MR College of Gulbarga.

The four-time Lok Sabha member has served in various capacities both in the state government and in the Congress party. He served the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee as its president twice, once in 1983-85 and then in 1998-2000.

Between 1999 and 2004, he was the leader of the Opposition in the eleventh State Assembly. And earlier, from 1980 to 1983, YSR had also served as a minister in the state government, holding portfolios of rural development, medical and health and education.

Becoming chief minister was a long cherished dream for YSR. Prior to the 2004 state elections, he led an unprecedented 1,400km-long paadayatra covering all the backward areas in the state. He said he was on a mission to understand the ground realities of the people.