The Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) had given its first secret report to YSR Congress president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. The report suggested no ticket for at least 50 sitting MLAs.

According to the sources, the I-PAC found these 50 MLAs as most inaccessible to the people, rarely visited the constituency, have not done any work in the constituency in the last three years, not raised any question or joined any debate in the Assembly, never addressed a public meeting in the constituency, besides other issues.

Ironically, most of these 50 MLAs have hardly participated in the “Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam” programme of the ruling party. Though most of the MLAs are actively participating in the programme, there are some who have not even visited one village in the last one month.

Despite Jagan Mohan Reddy giving a strict warning last month at the party meeting, these MLAs have not stepped out of their homes till now. Leave alone meeting the general public, some of them are not even meeting the party key activists and key leaders who play an important role in the villages both in electioneering and on the day of polling.

With the report on hand, the chief minister had asked the I-PAC to get the second report ready by July 8, when the party plenary begins. The chief minister almost made up his mind to blast these MLAs and look for alternative names.

Jagan Mohan Reddy also advised the I-PAC team to find at least three alternative names to the existing MLAs who are to be dropped in the next election. The team is now busy visiting the villages, meeting people and collecting the data on the sitting MLA, next best candidates. This list is likely to reach Jagan Mohan Reddy in the first week of July, when he gets ready to address them at the party plenary.

Chief Minister and the YSR Congress president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is understood to have made up his mind to drop 65 sitting MLAs in the 2024 general elections. He is said to have prepared the list and is sending feelers to them in advance.

Jagan Mohan Reddy told the Ministers and the party district unit presidents the other day that he had the information about every MLA, particularly with reference to the door to door campaign launched by the party on May 11.

He said seven MLAs have not participated in the programme even for a single day, while 65 MLAs have participated for just 10 days. Out of the 150 MLAs, less than 10 MLAs have participated in the programme for 20 days.

When he presented these statistics at the meeting, the party district unit presidents were shocked and had no answer, except to remain silent with their heads down.

Jagan Mohan Reddy told them that this door to door campaign would continue for next eight months and said that he would watch every MLA for six months only. He said he would replace the non-performing MLAs after six months and the new faces would take over those constituencies.

The party district unit chiefs were asked to keep an eye on the MLAs, while the regional coordinators were asked to focus on the constituencies represented by the TDP MLAs. Out of the 23 TDP MLAs, four have already defected leaving 19 constituencies to be focused.

Minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy is focusing on the Kuppam constituency represented by Chandrababu Naidu. The regional coordinators were asked to focus on the remaining 18 Assembly constituencies.

But, the TDP after the success of the Mahanadu, is growing strong with every leader getting into action. It is not going to be as easy to defeat the TDP as Jagan says.

Has YSR Congress chief Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy made up his mind to support the presidential candidate of the ruling BJP-led NDA? If one goes by the previous election in 2017, the answer is yes as Jagan Mohan Reddy backed the NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind in those elections, despite his rival Chandrababu Naidu being part of the NDA in those days.

The Presidential election is scheduled to be held sometime in July this year. The ruling NDA has 5,30,690 votes against the required 5,49,452 votes. The total electoral college constitutes the members of the both Houses of Parliament and the State Assemblies.

Though the Congress-led UPA has just 2,56,756 votes and is nowhere near to victory, the NDA is running short of 18,762 votes to have a comfortable victory for its candidate. The neutral parties, which are not part of either NDA or the UPA have 2,94,395 votes and placed in a better position than the Congress-led UPA.

Interestingly, the YSR Congress has 43,674 votes with its 28 MPs and 151 MLAs put together. This accounts for 4 per cent of the total electorate of the Presidential election. The NDA is running short of 2 percent of votes, while the YSR Congress has 4 percent of votes on its hand.

The NDA, without the YSR Congress has 49 per cent votes as against 51 per cent of votes required for the election of its candidate with simple majority. The UPA has 24.02 per cent, while others have 26.98 per cent votes. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress has 4 per cent votes from this 26.98 per cent, which would give a comfortable victory to the NDA candidate.

It is in this background Jagan Mohan Reddy is holding a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi this evening. He is scheduled to meet Modi at 4.30 in the evening where the Prime Minister is expected to seek Jagan Mohan Reddy’s support.