New Delhi, May 31: After defying the Congress high command by undertaking a tour of Telangana region, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy today said he was ready to quit as Kadapa MP if it was proved that he had politicised the visit even as he insisted on continuing with the yatra.
Jaganmohan, who arrived here last night, said he had come to meet the Congress leadership to convince it that his yatra was apolitical in nature and that he had full faith in party president Sonia Gandhi.
Congress said the matter is “under consideration” of the party high command and whatever action is necessary, it will be taken.
Alleging that his opponents had sent an adverse report to the Congress leadership, Reddy said, “I have sought appointments with the party high command to apprise them of what has happened. I will explain to them that I have done nothing wrong.”
The MP, who is in the eye of a storm over his tour, said it was his “moral responsibility” to go, meet and console the families of those who had either died or allegedly committed suicide after hearing the news of the death of his father YS Rajasekhara Reddy.
“It is my duty and moral responsibility. I went to Khammam district some time back and I met 54 families there,” said the 37-year-old MP while describing himself as a “dutiful” son of late Andhra Pradesh chief minister.
“Never ever I had made a single political statement. You can recall the tapes and if you can prove that even in one meeting in Khammam district in Telangana that I have politicised (the yatra) I am ready to go to any extent even I am ready to resign,” he said.
Asked whether he would continue with the tour, Reddy said it “cannot be stopped” as he was “committed to that level
what I am doing.”
He said he wanted to meet the party leadership to ask it that he wanted to continue with the tour.
When asked about the issue, Congress spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan said the “matter is under consideration of the party high command” and “whatever action is required, will be taken by the general secretary in charge” of Andhra Pradesh.
She said there was no timeframe for any action.
To a question, she said the Congress is over 100 years old and it is “not going to be weakened by any individual”.
Law minister M Veerappa Moily, who is in-charge of Andhra Pradesh, sought to play down the issue, saying “everything is normal.”
Describing Reddy as the “son of a great leader (Rajshekhara Reddy)”, Moily said in Bangalore that the MP will “always” remain in Congress, dispelling speculation about split in the party in Andhra Pradesh.
“I have done nothing wrong. I just visited the families of those who had sacrificed their lives for my father. Is it wrong? I am undertaking the yatra not as a politician, but as the son of YS Rajasekhara Reddy,” Jaganmohan Reddy said.
He said the decision to meet those families was not taken now but in September last year, days after his father died in a helicopter crash.
“I have full faith in Congress president Sonia Gandhi. I will explain to the High Command that there is nothing political in the yatra. This is purely personal,” the MP said.
“Don’t create a situation as if there is a standoff between me and the party,” he said.
He is in the eye of a storm ever since he defied the party high command’s directive and went ahead with his tour of the sensitive Telangana region on Friday.
A day earlier, Moily had asked him not to go ahead with the yatra given the situation in the region, but a defiant Jaganmohan went ahead and was taken into preventive custody.
He was forced to abandon the yatra after violence erupted in Mahaboobabad town in Warangal district, the hotbed of the separate state agitation.
Pro-Telangana groups opposed the visit as he is against bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Jaganmohan had earlier embarrassed the Congress High Command in December last when he joined TDP members in Parliament in opposing the creation of Telangana state.
–Agencies