A TOUGH FIGHT ON JAGAN'S HANDS

N. CHANDRABABU NAIDU'S TDP MATCHES Y.S. JAGAN MOHAN REDDY'S YSRCP IN VOTER OUTREACH FOR LOK SABHA AND ASSEMBLY POLLS. BUT HIS WELFARE SCHEMES MAY GIVE JAGAN AN EDGE

- AMARNATH K. MENON

THE STAGE WAS SET ON A HOT summer's day in Hindupur, in the arid Anantapur region of Andhra Pradesh, where Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy made passionate appeal on May 4 to voters about the state's controversial Land Titling Act of 2023. "Your child is a land giver, not a land grabber," he said, referring to himself and what his rival Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has called the legislation that has sparked some concerns vis-à-vis transparency. "Beware of all the lies spread by Chandrababu Naidu out of desperation to come to power.... The Land Titling Act is a law made by the Union government by which farmers will have full rights over their lands.... Your child will make sure that farmers continue to own their lands and are not troubled in any way."

With polling for 25 Lok Sabha seats and 175 legislative assembly seats slated for May13, the battle lines are drawn between YSRCP and the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA), comprising arch-rival TDP led by N. Chandrababu Naidu as well as the BJP and actor Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena Party (JSP). Noholds-barred attacks are the norm in this double-barreled contest for political control of the state.

The previous evening, at a rally in Nellore, the TDP supremo had raised the pitch of the attack, terming Jagan Reddy a "destructor and dacoit", and confidently predicting a rout for the YSRCP in the elections and a sweep for the NDA troika. "These elections are a fight between dharma and adharma, between destruction and development, a battle between the dacoit that Jagan is and five crore people of the state," Naidu thundered.