Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan has asked the MPs of YSR Congress Party to reconsider their decision of resignation from the house. This is the first time a speaker has met MPs to advise against resignation. MPs Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy, Midhun Reddy, YS Avinash Reddy, YV Subba Reddy and VV Prasadarao submitted their letters of resignation to Mahajan during the budget session of parliament, but she has not accepted it yet. YSR Congress MPs had resigned to get an upper hand over the issue of special category status to the state of Andhra Pradesh in the aftermath of the bifurcation of the state.
Many believe that the Central government is reluctant to accept the resignation of MPs because they do not want a fresh by-election. If the resignation is postponed till 3rd of June then there will be no by-election, because as per rules of Election Commission of India if less than one year of tenure remains in the case of resignation, then there is no need to conduct by-election, the only exception being if a Chief Minister is to be elected. On the other hand, YSR Congress wants a by-election to show their strength because they are confident of winning and also hope to get momentum for the upcoming Lok Sabha and the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections in 2019. One of the MPs of YSR Congress, Midhun Reddy said, “We don’t know why it is taking such a long time for the Speaker to accept our resignations. We also want byelections in all five seats so that it can be a popular referendum against the Centre’s and BJP’s betrayal of the people of AP as well as a rejection of TDP’s collaboration with them in scuttling special category status. While BJP and Centre are evidently trying to avert bypolls, we will meet the Speaker and request her to accept our resignations immediately, certainly before June 3, so that bypolls are held.”
This could also be BJP’s attempt to show TDP the confidence of the YSR Congress, because they broke the alliance with BJP led NDA on the issue of granting special status to Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation of the state. Since the alliance broke, TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu has been attacking BJP constantly to undermine their chances of contention in the state. Both of the regional parties TDP and YSRCP are trying to portray BJP as anti-Andhra to crack down on any leverage that BJP may get in the state. The TDP in its recent party Congress focused on criticizing BJP, the reason behind this being that the support base of BJP and TDP overlap. Both parties fought the 2014 assembly election together and won with a majority. BJP has not been a serious contender in the state since independence, and did not win double-digit vote percentage in any Lok Sabha or state assembly election and never reached near making a government in the state.
Now under the leadership of Amit Shah, the party is trying to woo the Kapu community which is more than 10 percent of the state in order to become a serious contender for the CM chair in the state. The other two major parties YSRCP and TDP are dominated by Reddy and Kamma communities respectively. These communities have numerically lower strength than Kapus but enjoy a disproportionate share of power in Andhra Pradesh, which is the reason behind BJP ‘s confidence in trying to woo the Kapu community.