Jagan Mohan Ready

After a 14-month padyatra, the YSR Congress president is sure of winning Andhra Pradesh

- Rahul Devulapalli

ON A RECENT weekend, a low-cost flight from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam had a special passenger in the front row—YSR Congress president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. Almost every passenger boarding the flight stopped for a selfie with the man, and many party leaders, too, jostled with each other to get close to him. The flight took off, but not before Jagan appealed to the passengers to not inconvenience the airline staff.

The flight landed safely in Visakhapatnam, a place where, a few months ago, someone had slashed Reddy’s shoulder with a knife. The attacker had missed Reddy’s neck by inches, sparing him his life. Predictably, the incident had political repercussions. But, how did it affect him personally? “I strongly believe in destiny,” Reddy told THE WEEK. “Somebody with an evil intent wants to alter that destiny, [but] God is there to take care of it. There is no point in having fear in my mind and not doing what I am supposed to do. The knife reached the lounge only because the attacker was working in a restaurant in the airport, which belongs to Telugu Desam Party sympathiser Harshavardhan Chowdary. He is close to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s son, Lokesh. The attacker was employed without a no objection certificate from the police, despite having an attempt-to-murder case on him. The Andhra Pradesh Police do not want to probe who is behind the attack.”