Though getting 12 Lok Sabha seats is a big achievement for a new party, top leaders were disappointed that the new survey could be an indication that the sympathy factor for the YSR family was slowly dying down.
Sensing the seriousness of the situation, party’s honorary president Vijayamma started immediate troubleshooting operation. She started review meetings of different Lok Sabha constituencies. The party has already appointed in-charges for different constituencies. It is presumed that they were tentatively selected as the candidates for the 2014 elections. Now Vijayamma is calling all the in-charges, one after the other and having detailed discussions on the ground-level situation. She is telling the party leaders to go into the field and work on people’s problems.
Vijayamma is unhappy with the way the party handled the power crisis. Despite calls from the central office, party leaders down the line could not take advantage of the situation in building up goodwill with the people and creating awareness among them on the failure of the government. Vijayamma has been expressing her unhappiness with the ground level work of the functionaries. She has also been telling the leaders to prepare the party for the local body elections.
The increasing dissidence in the party is also worrying the leaders. As new leaders including MLAs are joining the party, the hopes of senior leaders of getting party tickets are crashing. MLAs joining the party are doing so, only after getting an assurance from Jagan about their tickets. Now it is being said that senior leaders were insisting that only those who could spend a minimum of Rs. 5 crore for Assembly and Rs. 10 to 15 crore for the Parliament would get tickets. Party senior leaders are telling aspirants that they should not be under the impression that they could win the election by merely chanting the names YSR and Jagan. With this, some of the aspirants were disappointed.
Now Vijayamma is also in consultation with senior leaders on how to once again whip up the sympathy, ahead of the elections. Bharati’s article in Sakshi is seen as one of the plans in that direction. It is being said that Bharati also may tour the state explaining how the family members of YSR were being troubled by the TDP, Congress and CBI combine.