Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan is likely to accept the resignations of five YSR Congress MPs when they appear before her for personal verification in New Delhi on Tuesday. In that scenario, the Election Commission is expected to announce byelections to fill the vacancies as the term of the current Lok Sabha is valid for more than a year, till 2 June 2019.
The five MPs—Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy (Nellore), Y.V. Subba Reddy (Ongole), Y.S. Avinash Reddy (Kadapa), P.V. Mithun Reddy (Rajampet) and V. Varaprasada Rao (Tirupati-SC)—quit their seats on 6 April in protest against the denial of special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
YSR Congress leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had been touring the state for the last seven months seeking special status to Andhra and he had told his MPs to be ready to quit their seats for the cause. The ruling TDP pulled out of the BJP led NDA government at the Centre for the same cause and there has been a race of sorts between the two parties on who is more committed to the special status cause.
Initially, it was thought that there won’t be any byelections to the five seats as the resignations given by the MPs might not be accepted before the monsoon session of Parliament scheduled in July-August. Mithun Reddy told this newspaper over the phone on Saturday that the party was committed to ensure that the MPs’ resignations were accepted at any cost on 29 May. “What is the purpose of resigning when our resignations were not accepted? Our leader (Jagan) is keen on accepting our resignations and going for byelections over the same issue,” the MP said. Jagan is particular about forcing byelections to the LS seats held by his MPs as the present political conditions are favourable to his party. Of the five seats, Jagan is confident of winning back at least Kadapa and Rajampet from his home district and his sitting MPs are strong enough to win Nellore and Ongole seats. He has to work hard to win Tirupati (SC) seat.
But the party leaders are confident that all the five MPs would be re-elected as they have sacrifised their seats for the cause of special status to Andhra, as per the promises made to it at the time of bifurcation of the combined state four years ago. “There is a strong sentiment among the people for special status and we have no doubt regarding the re-election of our MPs,” said YSR Congress spokesman A. Rambabu. At the same time, AP CM and TDP president Chandrababu Naidu is leaving no stones unturned to wrest at least a few seats from Jagan, if bypolls were to be held. The CM told his party leaders in a recent meeting that winning at least three out of the five LS seats was crucial to the TDP as the next general elections are just a year away. The electoral prospects of these two parties depend on the stand of the other marginal forces like Congress, the Left and Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena.