Former CM and YSR Congress party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy couldn’t even secure the Leader of Opposition status in the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly due to the embarrassing defeat in the 2024 elections in which his party was confined to a meagre 11 seats out of the 175 constituencies. As expected by everyone, Jagan decided to skip the assembly sessions, fearing intense criticism from his opponents in the house.
With the assembly sessions set to resume on November 11th during which the first budget of the new government will be tabled by finance minister Payyavula Keshav, the spotlight is back on YS Jagan and his remaining 10 MLAs. After taking oath as MLAs on the first day of the house in June, all the 11 representatives of YSRCP skipped the rest of the sessions. They boycotted the governor’s speech on July 22nd and didn’t attend the house thereafter.
Jagan has been criticising Chandrababu’s government for not introducing the budget and preferring vote-on-account for these four months. So, will Jagan and his MLAs attend the budget session and take part in an active and constructive discussion with the ruling party MLAs ? This is now the talking point in the political circles.
Assembly speaker Chintakayala Ayyannapatrudu challenged Jagan to attend the session and face him in the house. He made scathing remarks on Jagan during several public meetings and media interactions in the last four months. But, neither Jagan not his party react on his comments and maintained silence.
It is a known fact that Jagan filed a petition in the High court to recognise him as the Leader of Opposition as YSRCP is the only party in the opposition. The matter pending with the court as the hearing set to take place next year. So, there won’t be any change in the status of Jagan’s party in the assembly.
Amidst this scenario, it would be interesting to see if Jagan changes his mind and decides to attend the assembly sessions or not. If he fails to attend the house, there willa further erosion of his stature as a people’s representative.
