Andhra Pradesh has seen a national record in terms of postal ballots turnout as nearly 5 lakh postal ballots were polled this year as opposed to 2019’s 2.6 lakh. In view of such a massive turnout, there are several theories on which outfit would be most benefited by the spike in ballots.
Earlier in 2004, when Chandrababu was the CM, he introduced programs like “Prajala Vaddake Palana” and used to conduct flash check-ups to assess the attentiveness of the government employees. This resulted in the employees working against Naidu as they felt the then CM was not in their favor.
There was even a ground-level talk then that these employees worked against Naidu and even encouraged the elderly and physically handicapped to vote for Congress in the 2004 election. And when Naidu ended up losing the election, a few employee unions even claimed credit for TDP’s loss.
After 2 long decades, a similar scenario is being seen in AP as a record nearly 5 lakh postal ballots were polled in 2024. After all the oppression the government employees and unions were put through over the last 5 years, there is a general conception amongst observers that the employees worked overwhelmingly against Jagan. The massive turnout of postal ballots is being shown as a sign of the same.
A senior political analyst who had been following Telugu states politics for many decades remarks that after 2004, this is the first time employees united against the incumbent government and this could lead to catastrophic results for the YSR Congress. We will know if this is actually the case on 4th June as the counting is scheduled to happen on this date.
Tags ANdhra Pradesh Chandrababu Jagan