Hyderabad, January 15: The unflinching loyalty of D Srinivas to Congress president Sonia Gandhi has paid off. The AICC on Friday announced that he will continue to head the APCC until further orders.
By securing the high command’s blessings, Srinivas has created a record of sorts. Before him, no one had been nominated as PCC president for the third consecutive term. An elated Srinivas said: “Sonia Gandhi has reposed faith in me. I will take the party forward as she directs me.” According to sources, the factor that weighed most in his favour was his good behaviour: he is the only Congress leader in the entire Telangana region who doesn’t embarrass the party on the T issue!
As a Rayalaseema leader, Kiran Kumar Reddy, is the Chief Minister, the AICC had to look for a leader from Telangana to head the PCC. Srinivas hails from Telangana and what more, he is loyal to the core.
If anyone other than Srinivas was made the PCC chief, the danger of the man raising the Telangana issue always looms large over the party. Though Srinivas stands for separate Telangana, he does not proclaim it from rooftops. Another factor which clinched the issue in his favour was his success in preventing several Telangana MLAs from attending a recent meeting of the Telangana Congress public representatives here in the State capital. Srinivas had sent out feelers that there was a possibility of the meeting being viewed as “anti-party” activity by the high command, which deterred the party’s T MLAs and ministers from attending it. Eventually, only 10 MLAs made it to the meeting.
While deciding on his name, the party high command conveniently ignored the fact that he lost elections in Nizamabad not once but twice in the last two years. During the Assembly elections in 2009, he lost to the BJP candidate in Nizamabad and in the byelections last year too, he was defeated. Though he played a crucial role in helping the party come to power twice – in 2004 and 2009 – he could not do much to save the Congress the blushes during the bypolls for 12 Assembly seats in Telangana last year.
After the electoral drubbing, observers felt his goose was cooked for good. He had tried to get into the Legislative Council and failed. He had set his sights on a Rajya Sabha seat. Even that did not materialise. Srinivas was counting his days. But then, fortune is like a flirt.
–Agencies