DR. YSR's medicine works in AP.................

HYDERABAD: Yedugiri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy's moment of truth came in 2003, when, as AP Congress chief, he undertook a 64-day padyatra across 1,500 kms. 'Andhrababu' Naidu was then at the high noon of his e-power, seemingly immune to even the ravages of successive bad monsoons. 

However, as YSR tramped through the dusty hamlets, he was flooded by petitions. "This set me thinking, and that was the genesis of my policies," YSR had told TOI. 

These include the massive focus on irrigation projects, Rs 2 per kg rice to the poor, Indiramma houses to the poor, old-age pensions, and Rajiv Argoaysri by which the poor can get specified surgeries of up to Rs 2 lakh free. "These will enable us to romp back to power," YSR told TOI in the run up to this election. 

YSR learnt the ropes of realpolitik in the long years when he had been pushed into the wilderness by then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. So well that he was the only Congress chief minister of AP left undisturbed by the Congress high command for five years. "I am loyal to my leader, my people are loyal to me. I do my work, and am not bothered about anything else," YSR replied to TOI. 

YSR belongs to Rayalaseema where the enemy is killed slowly,and never pardoned. The doctor-CM has showed a facility for sending his rivals into a gory sunset. This time too, many of them, starting with AP Congress chief D Srinivas, who used to carry tales to Delhi, have bit the dust. The entire campaign had rested on YSR's shoulders. "I live by my courage and convictions," YSR told TOI.