Hyderabad, January 15: TO overcome the Telangana crisis in the party, Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu appears to have adopted a divide-and-rule policy.
Naidu, who avoided a meeting with Nagam Janardhan Reddy and others yesterday, is now holding one-on-one meetings with Telangana MLAs.
Today he spoke with Suddala Devaiah and Satyavati Rathod. Last night he had held discussions with Hareeswar Reddy, Revuri Prakash Reddy, Hanumath Shinde and others. It may be recalled that Devaiah too had planned to quit the TDP and join the TRS. He, however, changed his mind in the last minute.
Naidu is spending 45 minutes with each MLA and the one-on-one meetings will continue. He is holding meetings with all the disgruntled MLAs and reportedly filling hope in them that the division in Congress vote would take the TDP to the cradle of power and it was time that all TDP leaders remained in the party.
Naidu also discussed the crisis in the Telangana TDP with T-MLAs and elicited opinions from party MLAs on the demand for a separate party unit for Telangana and constitution of a coordination committee. Naidu is, in principle, against a separate party unit for the region.
Irked at Naidu’s behaviour, Nagam Janardhan Reddy, Kadiam Srihari and Errabelli Dayakar Rao raised a banner of revolt against Naidu and held a separate meeting recently. These leaders felt that Naidu’s consultations with party MLAs was nothing but to counsel them not to insist for a separate party unit. Nagam Janardhan Reddy is likely to meet Naidu in a day or two.
If the talks fail, Nagam may quit the party either to float his own outfit or to sail with some other party. He is, however, unwilling to join the TRS.
–Agencies