Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee waxed eloquent on the Congress? victories in West Bengal and Assam, but had only a curt one-liner in response to Jagan Mohan Reddy?s record-breaking by-election win from the Lok Sabha constituency of Kadappa: ?I do not comment on by-elections as they are not fought on any larger political trends.?
Yet, this is one election result that seems to have pooped the party spirit at the AICC headquarters. Not only did Reddy and his mother Vijay Lakshmi win from Kadappa and the assembly constituency of Pulivendula, respectively, they did so with record margins.
Reddy?s margin of victory was a stupendous 5,21,000 votes, rivalling the record set by Ram Vilas Paswan, while his mother won by 85,171 votes. Both the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party candidates in Kadappa lost their deposit.
Reddy has immediately announced the resumption of his ?Odarpu Yatra?, an outreach programme over which he resigned from the Congress. A Congress source admits that Reddy has influence over at least eight Andhra Pradesh MPs in the Lok Sabha and ?god knows how many MLAs?.
The victory is a setback for chief minister Kiran Reddy, who had parked 13 ministers in the constituency to ensure a Congress victory. The Congress? dominant position in Delhi owes too much to its numbers from Andhra Pradesh for the party to sleep easy tonight.
With the Telangana movement likely to pick up in May again, troubled times lie ahead for the Congress in one of its most significant states.