16 Months in Jail, Father’s political reputation, 3000 Km long walkathon across the state and finally becoming the Chief Minister of the state, this is the journey of Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is likely to be the new Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh after the declaration of Assembly election result.
Jagan Mohan Reddy, founder of the YSRCP is the son of former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh YSR Reddy who died in a helicopter crash in 2009. Reddy’s YSRCP has won 144 seats out of the 175 seat Andhra Pradesh Assembly election. The party has also made a clean sweep in the Parliamentary election held on the 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh.
But the victory has not come that easy for Jagan and his party. Jagan’s real test for survival began after his father death in 2009 when six months after his father died he began an odarpu yatra to meet the families of those who died or committed suicide on the news of YSR Reddy’s death. The Congress party ordered Jagan to call off the Yatra however he denied doing so left the Congress party along with his mother after a fallout with the party highcommand.
Jagan then formed his own party in 2011 and emerged victorious in the bypolls. In 2012 Jagan Mohan Reddy was arrested by the Central Beaureu of Investigation (CBI) on embezzlement charges when he spent 16 months in jail after his bail was rejected by the Supreme Court dismissed his bail petition for 3 times on 4 July 2012, 9 August 2012, and on 13 May 2013. During his time in jail, Jagan held a 125-hour long hunger strike against Congress-led UPA’s decision to form a separate state of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. Both Jagan along with his mother resigned from Andhra Pradesh assembly opposing the formation of Telangana.
Jagan in 2014 faced another setback in his political career when his newly formed YSRCP lost the assembly election by winning only 67 out of 175 seats. In order to revive his party, Jagan Mohan Reddy launched a 3,000-km- long walkathon ‘PrajaSankalpaYatra’ in November 2017 covering 125 assemblies in 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh in 430 days.
Jagan Mohan Reddy’s decade long journey of filling his father’s shoes has finally has come to end today when the YSRCP president will be sitting on the same chair and serve the people of Andhra Pradesh like his father did 10 years back.
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