Hyderabad, April 07: The Congress will have one reason to gloat over even if it loses the elections in Kadapa. It has succeeded in proselytising hardcore YS Jagan Mohan Reddy loyalists into Congress men with “unswerving” loyality to party president Sonia Gandhi and chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
One Congress leader said: “We are not worried too much about the likely outcome of the by-elections. But we are able to throw scare in them that if pro-Jagan MLAs do not forget their leader, there is no political future for them and we have succeeded on that score.”
The Congress has deployed as many as 14 ministers and several party leaders, who included suspected Jagan supporters, to campaign against the YSR Congress leader in the latter’s home constituency of Kadapa. However, it could not rein in the party MLAs loyal to Jagan like Konda Surekha, Balineni Srinivasa Reddy, C Adinarayana Reddy and A Amarnath Reddy.
It is learnt that the ministers, MLAs, MLCs and other Congress leaders who had initially backed the ‘Jagan for CM’ campaign in the aftermath of YSR’s untimely death in September 2009, have felt that they are being forced to undergo a ‘character test’ in the name of Kadapa by-elections after the state party leadership had picked them as in-charges for each of the seven Assembly segments of the Lok Sabha constituency.
It has become inevitable for them to prove their loyalty to the party and its leadership by camping in Kadapa and to strive for victory of party candidates DL Ravindra Reddy and YS Vivekananda Reddy in Kadapa and Pulivendula respectively. The party leadership has also sent government chief whip M Bhatti Vikramarka, whip Kondru Murali and others to campaign in Kadapa and to target Jagan during electioneering.
After the party’s debacle in the MLC elections in local bodies constituencies in Anantapur, Chittoor and Kadapa districts, senior leader and former minister JC Diwakar Reddy said it was minister Raghuveera Reddy who had first launched the campaign “Jagan for CM post” immediately after YSR’s death. Several ministers, who are members of the Kiran’s cabinet, joined the chorus.
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC president D Srinivas racked their brains discussing selection of suitable candidates and electoral strategies, and came up with the decision to appoint ministers as in-charges for each of the seven Assembly segments of Kadapa parliamentary constituency. Thus Raghuveera Reddy was appointed in-charge of Kamalapuram, Mahidhar Reddy of Badvel, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy and S Sailajanath of Pulivendula, Kanna Lakshminarayana of Kadapa, TG Venkatesh of Proddutur, Botcha Satyanarayana and Erasu Pratap Reddy of Jammalamadugu and Dharmana Prasada Rao and Mopidevi Venkataramana of Mydukur). Besides, some more ministers _ DK Aruna, D Sridhar Babu, B Saraiah and P Balaraju _ were roped in to coordinate electioneering. Mnority minister Syed Ahmadullah, MLC Mohd Jani, former minister Shabbir Ali and others were asked to campaign for the party candidates.
Even as the electioneering was picking up in Kadapa, the PCC and the CLP tried to scare MLAs loyal to Jagan. While the PCC had issued show- cause notices to some rebel MLAs, the CLP petitioned the deputy speaker seeking disqualification of four MLAs. Acting on the petition, the Legislature Secretariat served show-cause notices to the MLAs concerned.
It is to be seen how far the state Congress leadership’s multi-pronged strategy to contain the Jagan group will be successful.
–Agencies