Kadapa by-polls: YSR Congress party projects YSR as people's god

Syed Akbar
Kadapa, May 5: The YSR Congress party on Thursday, as a last ditch effort to woo the 
voters in Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula Assembly constituencies, sought to project 
former chief minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy as a god and Kadapa as the doorstep leading to 
the sanctum sanctorum.

Kadapa, a corrupt form of Gadapa (doorstep), is considered as the gateway to the famous 
shrine of Lord Sri Venkateswara in Tirumala. Drawing a parallel, the YSR Congress party 
has projected YSR as people’s god and Kadapa as his doorstep. “Thus, Kadapa will decide 
who is the real inheritor of YSR’s political and social legacy,” the YSR Congress pointed 
out in its latest electoral strategy.

The party has published thousands of pamphlets with the photograph of YSR in a meditation 
posture urging voters to exercise their franchise in favour of his son YS Jaganmohan 
Reddy in Kadapa Lok Sabha seat. It also urged their support for YSR’s wife Vijayalakshmi 
in Pulivendula Assembly constituency.

With the Congress seeking to project YSR’s brother YS Vivekananda Reddy as the “legal 
heir” of YSR, the Jagan camp has gone all hog to repudiate the ruling party’s claim and 
urging the voters to decide who is real inheritor is – Vivekananda Reddy or Jaganmohan 
Reddy.

Projecting late YSR as a “people’s god”, the Jagan camp said people bow down and touch 
with obeisance the gadapa (doorstep) leading to the sanctum sanctorum before praying to 
the deity. Similarly, people in Kadapa in whose hearts YSR lives as a god will pay their 
obeisance and decide on the real heir of the late chief minister.