Nellore, October 13: The controversial Odarpu Yatra, planned by Kadapa MP YS Jaganmonha Reddy in the district, raised a lot of din and heat in the district political arena well before it actually kicked off.
As expected, the yatra has caused a sharp division in the ruling party and a verbal clash between those supporting the yatra and others distancing themselves from it.
Meanwhile, TDP MLA Prasannakumar Reddy has added more to the din by announcing that he will participate in the yatra, much to the discomfiture of the TDP and surprise to the Congress.
Udayagiri MLA Mekapati Chandrasekhara Reddy reportedly ‘cursed’ those distancing themselves from the yatra and labelled them as ‘sinners’ at a press conference yesterday, which provoked municipal administration and urban development minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy and others. The minister, his brother MLA Anam Vivekananda Reddy, toeing the line of the party high command, decided not to associate themselves with Jagan’s Odarpu Yatra while Nellore MP Mekapati Rajmohan Reddy and his brother Udayagiri MLA Chandrasekhara Reddy have come out openly in support of Jagan and even taken the responsibility of organising the yatra in the district.
Pained at dubbing him as a ‘sinner’, Ramanarayana Reddy said that in politics bricks as well as bouquets were common. “We are not ungrateful people. We have much regard for Rajasekhara Reddy as a man who had done a lot to the poor and development of the state,’’ he said and added that as the high command indicated to partymen to stay away from the yatra, they were keeping themselves away from it. “If this is (following party line) wrong and a sin, I have no qualms in admitting that I am a sinner,’’ he said while talking to newsmen before his departure for Hyderabad yesterday evening.
Meanwhile, some of the Congress leaders, who were sitting on the fence, including Sarvepalli MLA Adala Prabhakar Reddy, who pinned hopes on getting a berth in the state cabinet, decided to join the yatra after it became clear that there was no cabinet reshuffle in the near future. According to the Mekapati brothers, the arrangements for the yatra were finished and it was expected to start tomorrow or day after.
—Agencies