The political capitulation of the leadership of the major political parties in Andhra Pradesh — Chandrababu Naidu, Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and Pawan Kalyan — to the Bharatiya Janata Party on a Constitution amendment bill, parting company with fellow states of south India, points to a deeper crisis of political legitimacy of Andhra’s power elites. Accused of various acts of omission and commission, the ideologically bankrupt leadership of the Telugu Desam Party, Jana Sena Party and YSR Congress Party find themselves on the same side as supplicants in the Delhi Darbar.

Since the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, in which the BJP lost its majority in Parliament and became dependent on the support of allies, all the three Andhra parties have been willing supporters of the BJP on a variety of issues. However, their decision to part company with other southern states on a proposal aimed at tilting the balance of parliamentary power against the demographically and economically better-performing southern states is an act of political servility.

Ironically, both the TDP and the YSRCP came into being on the foundation of Telugu self-respect and pride — atmagauravam. The TDP’s founder, the late N T Rama Rao, coined the famous phrase that “the Centre is a conceptual myth”. He challenged Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s model of centralisation of power and forced her to appoint the Justice Sarkaria Commission on Centre-state relations. Reddy formed his party in protest against the manner in which a Delhi-based coterie within Congress treated him and his mother after his father’s death.

For politicians rooted in this idea of atmagauravam, it must be truly demeaning to find themselves being blackmailed into submission to the leadership of a political party of no consequence among the........

© Indian Express