After watching Andhra Pradesh and national politics closely for nearly four decades, I have learnt one basic lesson: political parties are rarely born in a vacuum. Some emerge from a long ideological struggle, some from sustained organisational work, some from social movements—and some from a particular political moment that suddenly creates space for a new force.
To my mind, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) belongs largely to the last category.
The party emerged from an extraordinary emotional and political situation following the tragic death of the then united Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. His son, Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, successfully converted that enormous emotional goodwill into a political organisation and, in 2019, secured a spectacular mandate—151 of the 175 Assembly seats and 22 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats. But politics is ultimately a test of whether an emotional wave can be transformed into a durable political institution.
The 2024 election produced the answer to that question—at least for the moment. The YSRCP was reduced to just 11 Assembly seats, while the TDP won 135, Jana Sena 21 and BJP eight. The three-party alliance consequently secured 164 of 175 Assembly seats.
That was not merely a change of government. It was a dramatic restructuring of Andhra Pradesh’s political landscape.
Naidu: A Different Political Lesson
I have followed N. Chandrababu Naidu’s political career for decades and have also had the opportunity to observe his style of functioning closely. Therefore, what I see in Naidu today is not necessarily the same politician I watched in earlier phases of his career.
His decision to walk out of the NDA in 2018 over the demand for Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh and his subsequent political positioning before the 2019 elections carried a heavy political cost. The TDP eventually returned to the NDA in March 2024, after a six-year gap, in an alliance with the BJP and Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena.
In my assessment, the intervening years appear to have taught Naidu some hard political lessons.
The Naidu of today appears more measured, more pragmatic and considerably more conscious of the importance of political alliances. Whether that transformation came through experience, circumstances, advisers or his own political wisdom is secondary. What matters is that the TDP chief seems to have recognised that Andhra Pradesh’s interests—and indeed the TDP’s long-term political interests—cannot be viewed independently of the Centre.
Naidu himself made the point in 2024 that, apart from the Special Category Status issue, he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were broadly on the same page on economic reforms, development and wealth creation.
That is a significant political course correction.
It would therefore be simplistic to describe today’s Naidu merely as the Naidu of 2019. The political compulsions are different. The Centre is different. Andhra Pradesh’s requirements are different. And, perhaps most importantly, Naidu himself appears to have understood that political survival sometimes demands accommodation rather than confrontation.
The BJP-TDP-Jana Sena arrangement is now not merely an electoral understanding. The alliance is functioning as the governing coalition in Andhra Pradesh, with Naidu as Chief Minister and Pawan Kalyan as Deputy Chief Minister. Even in 2026, the three parties have continued to coordinate on important political decisions, including Rajya Sabha nominations.
YSRCP’s Structural Problem
The larger question, therefore, is not whether YSRCP can organise a protest tomorrow or conduct a meeting next week. Of course it can. It continues to have a political organisation, a committed leadership and a recognisable support base. Its own current political activity shows that it is preparing for future electoral battles.
The real question is whether the party can recreate the extraordinary political momentum of 2019.
That is a much more difficult proposition.
YSRCP’s biggest strength was always Jagan himself and the emotional legacy of YSR. But a political party cannot remain permanently dependent upon one personality and one political inheritance. It has to create second-line leadership, internal debate, institutional mechanisms and a political narrative capable of surviving the fortunes of its principal leader.
This is where I see a fundamental weakness.
The political estrangement between Jagan and his sister Y. S. Sharmila has further complicated the YSR political legacy. Sharmila eventually joined the Congress in January 2024 after merging her YSR Telangana Party with it, bringing an already visible family and political divide directly into Andhra Pradesh politics.
For a party built substantially around the legacy of one political family, such developments inevitably raise questions about political ownership of that legacy.
There is another problem.
After losing power, a political party needs to reinvent itself as an effective Opposition. It must identify public grievances, mobilise people, build credible leaders and continuously challenge the government on issues that matter to ordinary citizens.
YSRCP has certainly raised issues and conducted political programmes. But whether those efforts have yet created the kind of statewide political momentum required for a serious comeback remains an open question.
And this is where my four decades of political observation make me cautious about dismissing the importance of organisation.
The Centre Matters
Andhra Pradesh’s political history also demonstrates another reality: a State government cannot afford a permanently adversarial relationship with the Union Government.
In today’s federal structure, development requires coordination between the State and Centre—whether on infrastructure, investments, highways, railways, ports, industrial corridors, irrigation, technology or welfare programmes.
This does not mean that every non-BJP government is incapable of development, nor does it mean that every BJP-led government automatically succeeds. Governance has to be judged by actual performance.
But political compatibility between Amaravati and New Delhi can certainly influence the ease with which large development programmes are pursued.
The present TDP-Jana Sena-BJP arrangement has therefore created a political architecture that YSRCP must reckon with. The NDA secured 21 of Andhra Pradesh’s 25 Lok Sabha seats in 2024, while its three constituents together won 164 of 175 Assembly seats.
Those numbers cannot simply be wished away.
The Road Ahead
I would not call YSRCP a finished political force. In Bharat politics it has repeatedly demonstrated that today’s political wilderness can become tomorrow’s electoral revival. Political fortunes can change dramatically, and no responsible analyst can write an election result years before voters cast their ballots.
But there is an important distinction between possibility and political momentum.
At present, the political momentum in Andhra Pradesh rests with the TDP-Jana Sena-BJP coalition. YSRCP has to demonstrate that it can move beyond the personality-centric politics of its formative years, build a wider leadership base, reconnect with voters and convert Opposition politics into a sustained organisational movement.
As for Naidu, I believe the politician I see today is a more politically seasoned and pragmatic version of the leader I have watched for decades. His earlier experiment of moving away from the BJP-led NDA and his subsequent return appear to have reinforced one lesson: in Andhra Pradesh, political relationships with the Centre can have enormous consequences for both governance and party strategy.
Whether this new pragmatism will endure is for time to judge.
But one thing is already clear.
Andhra Pradesh’s politics has changed. YSRCP is no longer the unquestioned political force it appeared to be after 2019. The TDP has reinvented its political equations, Jana Sena has emerged as an important component of the governing arrangement, and the BJP has acquired a meaningful political presence in the State.
The real contest ahead, therefore, is not simply between Jagan and Naidu.
It is between two very different political models—one seeking to revive a personality-driven political movement after a dramatic electoral reversal, and another attempting to consolidate a coalition-based model of governance with a strong connection to the Centre.
For YSRCP, the challenge is no longer merely to oppose Naidu.
The challenge is to prove that it can reinvent itself.
