Hyderabad, September 20: Having steered the Congress government with a steady hand for a fortnight, Chief Minister K. Rosaiah’s next step forward will be a visit to New Delhi to thank the AICC leadership for reposing confidence in him and seeking advice on important issues.
“Ours is a national party and we have a strong leadership in New Delhi to guide us,” said Mr. Rosaiah in an interview during which he sported an air of self-confidence in contrast to his low profile in the aftermath of Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s death in a helicopter crash on September 2.
With the truant Ministers falling in line and the political turbulence over, Mr. Rosaiah was asked whether he was satisfied with the Congress high command’s support to him. “I am not dissatisfied. All the Ministers attended my video conference and there is no absenteeism at review meetings,” he said.
On whether he was in sync with the chorus in the State Congress for anointing Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy as Chief Minister, Mr. Rosaiah replied, “As an individual, I feel Jagan is a young and enthusiastic leader. He has inherited certain good qualities from his father. To appoint him as Chief Minister or something else is, however, the affair of the Congress high command.”
But, did he approve of hereditary politics? “We don’t have to look at it from that angle. The ability to handle issues, loyalty to the party and commitment to work matter above everything else,” he asserted.
Mr. Rosaiah maintained that his self-effacing action in not occupying the Chief Minister’s chamber in the Secretariat was out of deference for Rajasekhara Reddy. Strongly disagreeing with the suggestion that his reluctance conveyed a picture that he was Chief Minister in the interim, he said, “I do not suffer from any feeling of insecurity.”
He justified his resolve to work from the chamber he occupied as Finance Minister. “It is not important where I sit. I am meeting officers everyday and discharging all duties of a Chief Minister. I have no aversion to occupying the ‘C’ block office but it stirs up memories of YSR as I still visualise him sitting there,” he said.
Yet, he did not seem to foreclose the option of shifting when he pointed out that, apart from the above reasons, the fortnight-long ‘pitra pakshalu’, considered inauspicious, ended only on Friday.
Mr. Rosaiah was quite convinced that the former Chief Minister’s Bell 430 helicopter was in good condition as borne out by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s Certificate of Airworthiness valid till 2010. Asked why the government had baulked in pinning responsibility on any one individual or department for the crash, Mr. Rosaiah said four inquiries, including one by the CBI, were in progress. “We want to know what happened before taking any action,” he added.
Recollecting the last weeks of Rajasekhara Reddy’s life, he said the latter was restless over the lack of authentic assessment of his government’s welfare and development schemes and the total dependence on officials for feedback. He was disturbed over reports that benefits meant for weaker sections were passed on to 52 ineligible persons in his own Pulivendula constituency. It was then that he hit upon the idea of launching ‘Racha Banda’, a programme of interaction with people, which he never launched as death snatched him away.
-Agencies