Hyderabad, October 01: The clean sweep of the byelection to the posts of all the five Zilla Parishad Chairpersons held in the State today has come as a shot in the arm for Congress leaders.
The Congress nominees won Adilabad, Karimnagar, Kurnool, West Godavari and Vizianagaram Zilla Parishad chairpersons’ posts even as the turmoil in the Congress continued over YSR’s successor issue and Jagan Mohan Reddy’s supporters squirming over Rajya Sabha member V Hanumantha Rao’s statement that claims of death of 600 persons in the wake of the demise of Rajasekhara Reddy were bogus in nature.
The winners are: Karimnagar: Lakshmana Kumar (Dharmaram ZPTC member); Adilabad: B Ganapathi (Kauthala); Kurnool: A Venkataswamy (Kalluru); West Godavari: Meka Seshubabu (Palacole); Vizianagaram: B Chandrasekhar (Cheepurupalli).
An elated Chief Minister K Rosaiah said winning all the byelections was a pleasant development for the Congress party. “At one stage, we wondered whether we would be able to win a majority of the seats since Rajasekhara Reddy is no more. But we won all of them and Rajasekhara Reddy, though dead, had helped the party win the elections,’’ Rosaiah said.
In an interesting development, the TDP tried its best to ensure the defeat of the official Congress nominee Ganapathi in Adilabad, who was in the TDP till recently. All the 14 TDP members supported Raju, the Congress rebel candidate in the fray propped up by leader Indrakaran Reddy and DCC president Ramachandra Reddy. As Raju had the support of only 11 Congress members, he could not win the election though the entire TDP flock supported him. Raju secured 25 votes while Ganapathi polled 27 votes, in a house of 52 members.
After the news broke out about the clean sweep, Rosaiah said the Congress was winning election after election as if there was a wave favouring his party. He referred to the recent byelections to ZPTCs, MPTCs, municipal wards and finally the byelection to Tekkali Assembly seat in which Revathipathy’s widow Bharati won with a majority higher than her husband.
Rosaiah said that he looked forward to a repeat of the Congress performance in future elections. He said he was quite optimistic about winning the 2014 general elections in which his party would be able to win 41 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats as desired by Rajasekhara Reddy.
Though Rosaiah attributed the victory of the party to the goodwill Rajasekhara Reddy had built for himself, it was clear that Rosaiah tried to send a message that Rajasekhara Reddy or no Rajasekahra Reddy, the party was in a fine fettle and that it was on the move.
He, however, did not want to be drawn into the controversy kicked up by senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member V Hanumantha Rao that claims of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s loyalists that 600 persons either committed suicide or died of heart attack after the demise of Rajasekhara Reddy were bogus in nature. “I do not want to make any comment on the observations made by a Congress leader,’’ he said, indicating that he was not ready to support Jagan Mohan Reddy’s claim. It is obvious that Rosaiah did not want to take a line on the deaths and incur the wrath of the party high command.
Typical of Rosaiah, he refused to make any comment on Women and Child Welfare Minister K Surekha’s opinion that Jagan should be made the chief minister and that she would quit his cabinet if he were to continue as the chief minister. He simply smiled and left the venue of the press conference.
–Agencies–