Yuva Galam Padayatra: Jagan, don’t gag Lokesh, lest tongues wag and you may lag behind

AMARAVATI: With only less than a week left before its start, the Yuva Galam footmarch of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national general secretary Nara Lokesh continues to be clouded by uncertainty what with the Andhra Pradesh police not deciding on the permission for it. The Nara scion is scheduled to embark on a long, ambitious Andhra Pradesh-wide padayatra on January 27 from Kuppam, a bastion of his father Chandrababu Naidu that is slowly going out of grip.

Preparations are in full swing from the TDP to make the experience hassle-free for Nara Lokesh and Yuva Galam a smashing success but the state police playing hide and seek on giving its go-ahead is adding the element of unease and the suspense surrounding it looks like it may stretch up to the eleventh hour.

A war of words between the TDP and the ruling YSRCP on the issue is unwittingly helping the opposition party in its efforts to add more fizz to the all-round hype for the event, much before Lokesh struts out on his mission to position himself on a par with YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy. Sensing possible trouble, the TDP has been knocking at the doors of the office of the Andhra Pradesh Director-General of Police for quite some time.

A letter was written to the DGP Rajendranath Reddy on January 9 seeking permission for the Yuva Galam yatra. With no response coming from the other side, a reminder letter was also dashed off later. Finally, the DGP’s office responded to the letters on Saturday and sought full details of the yatra from its start to finish so that the police could assess the security scenario and provide necessary deployments.

But what irked the TDP leaders was the more than two dozens of posers on which the Andhra Pradesh DGP sought clarity from the organisers of the yatra. The details expected of the TDP leaders include the chosen roads for rallies and roadshows, everyday start points, number of convoy vehicles and people attending the meetings at every place and night-halts.

The TDP, which sees a sinister motive behind this, expressed its inability to furnish all these details in advance as most of it would be determined and decided on a given day, based on local factors. TDP politburo member Varla Ramaiah led his party’s attack against DGP Rajendranath Reddy and the YS Jaganmohan Reddy government, describing it as an attempt to put spokes in the Yuva Galam yatra out of fear. He recalled how padayatras have traditionally been allowed without any hindrances, not just in the two Telugu states but elsewhere in the country.

Starting from Mahatma Gandhi’s pre-Independence era footmarches, he listed out how leaders like YS Rajasekhara Reddy, Chandrababu Naidu, YS Sharmila and even YS Jagan were allowed to carry on with their endeavours. Making the ruling party leaders ducking for cover, the leader wondered if these many questions were posed by the police when YS Jaganmohan Reddy took out his padayatra when the latter was in opposition and the TDP was in power. He also sought to remind that both late YS Rajasekhara Reddy and YS Jagan were allowed to complete their padayatras without any trouble from the Chandrababu Naidu government.

YSRCP regime gamble backfiring?

The YSRCP Government brought in the controversial GO No.1 in the wake of the twin tragedies at Chandrababu Naidu’s recent public events in Kandukur and Guntur. The State Government appeared to have found a potent ruse in the deaths of 11 innocent people in the two incidents to impose restrictions on rallies and meetings on public roads.

The YS Jagan Government appeared to have felt that the opposition parties, especially the TDP, would take the GO in silence and swallow it in like a bitter pill, following the two stampede incidents. But contrary to their expectations, the government move met with severe criticism and opposition from the entire gamut of political parties in Andhra Pradesh and in an unexpected turn of events, the ruling YSRCP ended up being isolated on the issue.

The only semblance of support for its measure came from an unlikely quarter. Former CBI joint director V V Lakshminarayana welcomed the GO, saying the move was appropriate as policing at political public events was nothing short of a Herculean task.

Having said, YS Jagan’s government appeared to have erred in its judgement while clamping restrictions as the move intends to abolish an age-old tradition, followed by all political parties under every elected dispensation, all of a sudden and with one stroke. No doubt, the stampede deaths presented an outside opportunity on a platter for the ruling party to act on the sly and clip the wings of their opponents in disguise. But it seemed to have lost the plot while glossing over the fact that any oppressive measure against public political shows would impinge a key fundamental right bestowed on all the citizens.

The opposition parties were quick to point out that the controversial GO was a direct attack on the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Indian Constitution, as envisaged in Article 19 (1) (A). Constitutional rights and legalities apart, courtesies do matter in politics and history shows that there was no dearth of such instances even in the midst of bitter animosities. In fact, the case of how YS Jagan was able to march across the length and breadth of Andhra Pradesh during the TDP regime in 2018 and how he could accomplish it successfully right under the nose of his bete noir Chandrababu Naidu is a testimony to these rare, unspoken niceties.

Perhaps, it is high time for the Y S Jagan government to return the favour, not just for the sake of reciprocation but to even preempt negative perceptions, with the potential of hurting his party, going into the masses. In the recent past, YS Jagan and his bandwagon of leaders have been tossing around this lofty idea of winning all the 175 seats in the state. This, coupled with its determination to go it alone once again in the polls has helped the ruling party send out the message loud and clear that it was supremely confident of its show at the hustings.

But, by constricting the opposition parties in their freedom to hold public shows and dilly-dallying on Nara Lokesh’s Yuva Galam padayatra, the YSRCP may only end up undoing what it has gained so far in the perception battle. The last thing that YS Jagan and his partymen would want is the ignominy of being seen as diffident, unnerved by the very thought of Lokesh’s padayatra.

Of course, if the Government dodges and ducks, the TDP will go to court and secure permission. The court also will give permission as padayatra is a fundamental right and it can draw a parallel to Jagan’s epic effort.

For a regime that was beleaguered by the recent setbacks from the judiciary with regard to the controversial GO, this factor must be certainly weighing on its mind. But already jolted big time, the State Government is perhaps in the mood to play safe and thus prefer to be on a wait-and-watch mode until the High Court decides the matter, as directed by the Supreme Court, on Monday (January 23, 2023).