Apparently, statues of popular political personalities turn out to be one of the reasons for the debacles of political parties. Here is an analysis on how statues of political parties' heads are damaging the winning prospects of political parties concerned.
As we know, YS Rajasekhar Reddy led Congress party got two successive victories in 2004 and 2009 respectively. However, sudden demise of YSR in a chopper crash threw the late CM's fans into a state of distress.
Within no time, YSR's fans installed lakhs of statues across Telugu states. The number of YSR statues surpassed the number of statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr BR Ambedkar etc. However, this over the board gesture of YSR's fans didn't go down well with the people. As a result, YSRCP lost the election battle in 2014.
TDP assumed power in 2014. However, the party's head didn't learn lessons from YSR statues. A big number of NTR statues were erected everywhere across AP. Too many statues of NTR gave nauseating feeling to the people. In consequence, TDP faced a humiliating defeat in the general polls, 2019.
ADVICE TO RULING PARTIES: Ruling parties shouldn't indulge in extreme flattery on party's founders. TDP named several welfare programmes as NTR such as Anna Canteens, NTR Vaidyaseva etc. YSRCP named school children's midday meal scheme as 'YSR Akshaya Patra'. These kind of bhajana acts make people disgusted with the ruling parties. Instead of promoting parties founders through welfare schemes, ruling parties should prefer the names of patriots, social reformers and philanthropists for their welfare programmes.