Political Diary

Late on Wednesday afternoon, a few hours after the chopper carrying Y S Rajasekhara Reddy went missing, intelligence officials had darkly indicated that the helicopter had gone down with an explosion. Around the same time, a senior police official from Kurnool district said, in an equally hush-hush manner, that the helicopter had landed in Veligonda region of Nallamala hills. A day later, with news about YSR's death confirmed in the manner suggested by the intelligence officer and at the very same place revealed by the cop a day earlier, the big question is — was this a remarkable coincidence of two sharp speculations proving right or was there actual information that no one broke pending an official announcement? Or perhaps the answer lies in the simple fact that YSR had emerged as such a colossus in the state, and so inspired awe and fear in equal measure, that nobody could muster courage to publicly articulate intelligent conjectures about his death. That this was the reason why misinformation was going back and forth on Wednesday about how Rajasekhara Reddy was found alive and taken to safety, only to be denied within minutes. But it was not always like this. Although YSR was born rich he had no political legacy to fall back upon. He was a trained physician and practiced for a while. More than that, he was a natural leader who came up in stages by the sheer dint of merit. He became an MLA in 1978 and a junior minister in 1980, but then was pushed into virtual oblivion for a long phase. He became an MP and came close to Rajiv Gandhi, but before he could hold any important public office, Narasimha Rao was pushed to the PM's gaddi. The wily Rao recognized the potential of Reddy and decided to keep him down. The reputation of YSR's father Raja Reddy — a muscle man from Rayalaseema who had accumulated vast mining rights — had something to do with this attitude towards the son. But YSR was himself not a muscle man. He was a strong man and had inherited streaks of his fathers flamboyant personality. That he came from the badlands of Rayalseema, where it rains very little and life is hard, toughened him as a young man. It nurtured in him a tremendous spirit of survival as well as inculcated intolerance towards forces hostile to him. For, YSR would destroy his enemies in a determined manner, bit by bit. The goal mattered more than the means of decimating obstacles on his way, be it the Telangana movement or the Maoists. If enemies feared him, friends absolutely loved him. For friends he was generous to a fault and would overlook their foibles ^ something like another successful politician, Chandrasekhar, who would never fight shy of owning up his friends even if they came in very dark shades of gray. In an illustrative example, some time ago when someone complained about the highandedness of his close friend, YSR is said to have remarked: ``He is my friend. When will he throw his weight around if not when I am the chief minister?'' Such support for his friends and his spontaneous show of affection bred strong loyalty for the man. His followers would rarely betray him, even if he fell on bad days. He was true to his friends and expected them to reciprocate. In that respect, YSR banded with his party men and lived by a code of basic honesty. Few questioned his integrity in human dealings and relationships. This didn't necessarily extend to his material dealings, not at least in the eyes of his critics. For although he was re-elected on a development plank, and used public resources to shower largesse on electors, be it free power or free medical treatment, YSR displayed strong feudal tendencies. Land was close to his heart and there were allegations that he had added to his estate in native Pulivendula by grabbing forest land. An unprecedented number of scams hit the state during his regime including the Volkswagen scandal in which the state government paid Rs 11.5 crore to the person masquerading as a representative of the German company. Politically, YSR was astute. Having been in the bad books of Narasimha Rao, he realized that he had to be in the good books of 10, Janpath. And he could do this by proving useful to the high command. ``YSR realized that the Congress wanted seats in the Lok Sabha and generous contributions to the party coffers. He worked hard for this and soon got in the good books of the powers that be,'' said a political analyst who knew the man from close. If this was the way to the high command's confidence, it worked. Before his death, YSR had become so powerful that he was not a mere Congress CM. His stunning performance at the last Lok Sabha polls (no doubt with some generous help from Chiranjeevi), ensured two things — one, the Congress would be comfortable in Parliament and two, he could never be removed at will. In fact, it was said that if he were to be ever treated roughly or unjustly, he had the potential to break the state Congress and kick off an Andhra Congress. In a state where N T Rama Rao came to power invoking insult to Telugu pride because Congress chief minister Anajaiah was berated by Rajiv Gandhi on the tarmac of the Begumpet airport this is the strong legacy that YSR leaves behind. The million dollar question is whether his successors can do an encore?