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Jagan set to be YSRCP’s permanent president: Party leader
The plenary of the YSRCP commencing in Guntur on Friday will finalise the road map for the party’s programmes to capture power for a second successive term in the next assembly elections scheduled to be held in the first half of 2024.
A resolution will be passed at the two-day plenary of the ruling YSR Congress Party of Andhra Pradesh declaring chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy as the permanent president of the party, according to a senior party leader privy to the developments in the party.
“As per the party constitution approved by the Election Commission of India, elections to the post of party president would have to be held once in two years. In order to avoid this entire process, which is just a formality, a resolution would be passed declaring Jagan as the permanent president of YSRCP,” the party leader said.
At present, Jagan’s mother and former MLA YS Vijayalakshmi has been the honorary president of the party. Once the resolution is passed, she will cease to be in the post.
The plenary of the YSRCP commencing in Guntur on Friday will finalise the road map for the party’s programmes to capture power for a second successive term in the next assembly elections scheduled to be held in the first half of 2024.
The plenary assumes significance as it is being held for the first time after YSRCP came to power in May 2019 and amidst the talk that the party might go for early elections in 2023 to consolidate its hold in the state and decimate the main opposition Telugu Desam Party.
In fact, the YSRCP is holding its plenary after a gap of five years – the last time it was held was in September 2017. The plenary could not be held in 2018, as Jagan had embarked on a marathon padayatra that continued till January 2019, after which he came to power in May 2019.
The plenary could not be held in 2019, too, as the YSRCP president had just become the chief minister. In the next two years, too, the party did not conduct the plenary owing to Covid-19 pandemic.
There has been a talk in the party about the possibility of early elections, because of the latest moves of the YSRCP president stepping up his public outreach programmes. In the last few months, Jagan has been regularly addressing public meetings wherein he has been asking the people to bless him with power again.
At the same time, he has launched the Gadapa Gadapaku Prabhutvam (Government to every doorstep) in May, making all the party MLAs and ministers to visit every village to explain about the government programmes.
Jagan also made the ministers belonging to the weaker sections to undertake a whirlwind tour of the state in the name of Samajikya Nyaya Bheri (Social Justice campaign) in the last week of May. He also commissioned a survey on the performance of the MLAs in the same month.
“The chief minister would come out with clarity at plenary on whether the party would go to early elections in 2023, or go for the elections as scheduled in 2024,” the party leader quoted above said.
YSRCP general secretary and Rajya Sabha member V Vijay Sai Reddy said more than 500,000 people are expected to attend the two-day conclave. “Apart from the party workers at the grassroots level, party leaders at various levels right from polling both level to the state committee level, besides MPs, MLAs, MLCs and chairpersons of various corporations, would attend the plenary,” he said.
Vijay Sai Reddy said the plenary would discuss nine resolutions on various subjects, such as education, health, good governance, and decentralised administration. A resolution on the role of media, especially condemning a section of media unleashing the negative campaign against the Jagan government, would also be adopted, he said.
Another senior party leader and advisor to the government, Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, said the party would chalk out the action plan of the party for the next two years, especially on taking the welfare schemes being implemented by the Jagan government to every doorstep of the common man, besides countering the opposition campaign against the government.
The YSRCP is planning to organise a blood donation camp on the occasion of plenary.
