High-octane polls lined up in Andhra Pradesh for 2024 while Chandrababu Naidu's arrest topped 2023

Amaravati: High-octane electoral battles in Andhra Pradesh are the much-awaited events of 2024 while the bygone 12 months of 2023 saw their fair share of dramatic developments such as former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's early morning arrest in a multi-crore rupees 'scam'.

Expected to coincide with the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, the southern state's Legislative Assembly elections will emerge as a litmus test for the welfare-centric governance of YSRCP founder-president and Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. Highlighting he has spent Rs 2.5 lakh crore on welfare programmes, Reddy has called on the people of the state several times to vote for him if they thought that their families had benefited in his regime.

Among the top developments in the state in 2023 comes the arrest of Naidu, president of the Telugu Desam Party and the state Leader of Opposition. In the wee hours of September 9, the Andhra Pradesh CID police swooped in on Naidu at Nandyala and arrested him for his alleged role in the Rs 371-crore Skill Development Corporation scam case during his third stint (2014–2019) as the CM of the southern state. Incidentally, the arrest led to the formation of a political alliance, with questions remaining if the BJP would join the opposition bloc.

'Anguished' by Naidu's arrest, actor–politician and Janasena founder Pawan Kalyan met the former CM in the Rajamahendravaram Central Prison, and immediately announced an alliance with the TDP on September 14 to trounce the YSRCP in the next elections. Janasena is a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and had a pre-poll alliance with the saffron party in the recently concluded Telangana assembly polls. However, Janasena failed to enthuse the Telangana voters, losing deposit in all the eight seats it contested from in the neighbouring Telugu-speaking state where the Congress emerged victorious in the hustings. It remains to be seen whether the BJP will join the TDP–Janasena alliance in Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu's arrest was intensely contested in the Courts with top lawyers being flown in from Delhi to argue his case. He first received a four-week interim medical bail on October 31, followed by a regular bail on November 20, after a week short of two months' prison time. Naidu's son Nara Lokesh culminated his 'Yuva Galam' padayatra (marathon political walkathon) at Nellimarla in Vizianagaram district after covering the length and breadth of Andhra Pradesh, around 3,000 km, to win over the masses in the run-up to the high-stakes polls.

The southern state was shaken up by the impact of two train accidents, one in Odisha in June and another on October 29 in Vizianagaram district. Around 7 pm on June 2, train number 12841 from Shalimar to Chennai derailed at Bahanaga Bazar, approximately 140 km from Kharagpur in Bhadrak Section, killing nearly 300 passengers in the crash. Except for one death, 28 missing persons and 22 persons suffering minor injuries, nearly 700 passengers identified from Andhra Pradesh had managed to escape the horrific crash involving three trains in Odisha, unscathed. However, 13 persons died and 50 were injured on October 29 when the Palasa Passenger train hit the Rayagada Passenger train from behind at Kantakapalli, about 40 km from Visakhapatnam in the state, causing three coaches to derail. The severe cyclonic storm Michaung, which made landfall near Bapatla town on December 5 left a trail of destruction in its wake, inundating lakhs of acres of crops and damaging 770 km-long roads, uprooting trees and also leading to the death of livestock, among others.

On the business front, the YSRCP government managed to attract investments through its Global Investors Summit held in the port city of Visakhapatnam on March 3 and 4. The state government said it received investment pledges of up to Rs 13 lakh crore from a plethora of industries, exuding confidence in realising at least 90 per cent of that quantum.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy continued to express his intention to shift the state capital to the picturesque Visakhapatnam. However, he couldn't proceed due to various Court litigations.

The death of a minor girl in Tirumala due to a leopard attack prompted the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the official custodian of Sri Venkateswara temple in Tirupati, to capture half a dozen of the big cats and leave them in a faraway forest.