BJP’s last budget of this tenure brought lot of disappointment to Telugu people. Several leaders, analysts and common man are literally blasting NDA government for not giving any benefits to Telugu states. The assurances that were given to AP during bifurcation were completely ignored. Yet, Jagan, the opposition leader of the state, chose not to respond on the issue. What’s the reason?
Though some of the MPs of YSRCP have criticized the budget, it is the party leader’s response that registers in the minds of people. It is known to everyone that Jagan actually rose to fame in early 2010s by waging war against the then most powerful Sonia Gandhi. The way he embarrassed ruling Congress by defeating them in each and every bi-election, made him a hero among the youth as well as masses. But it seems, all of that is past and Jagan is not showing any sort of fighting spirit in the recent past.
Especially, when the final budget has been debated a lot and everybody openly criticizing the budget, NDA and BJP, Jagan choosing to keep mum on the topic is not going well with masses as well as youngsters. When both state and center were ruled by same congress party, he was brave enough to fight against both the governments. But after he released from Jail in 2013, he did not even attempt to rub the national parties on wrong side. Immediately after releasing from Jail, he made subtle changes to his argument – and started saying it is because of Chandra Babu Naidu and his letter, state is bifurcated. He intentionally “diverted” the “sin of bifurcation” on to Chandra Babu from Congress. From then on, he has been following the same “strategy”. Post 2014, he started saying NDA is not granting special category status to AP because of Chandra Babu’s inability. Even Sakshi paper seems to be following the same strategy as it wrote, because of AP CM’s inability and compromising nature, NDA did injustice to AP in the budget.
People who are observing all this are doubting whether Jagan lost his fighting spirit completely. Also, let us assume for a moment – Jagan becomes CM in 2019 and NDA or any other party comes to power at center and Disproportionate Assets case is still alive. Will Jagan be able to fight with center for Special category status ? Will he be able to dictate terms to the center to grant more allocations to AP in central budgets ? By seeing Jagan’s way of dealing with ruling governments at center and national parties, anyone can easily predict how he would respond. Some even opine, Jagan has completely lost the fighting spirit he showed in his early 2010s and we should n’t expect him to fight with anyone other than CBN.