Hyderabad, April 12: The Congress has redoubled its efforts to stake a claim to the political legacy of YSR with YS Jaganmohan Reddy going to town in Kadapa district, calling the Congress an Italian Congress.
Joining the army of those who want to appropriate YSR legacy, Rajahmundry MP Vundavalli Aruna Kumar said the association between the Congress and the late YSR was inseparable.
Addressing a news conference after releasing video clippings of YSR’s public speeches eulogising the services of Gandhi Nehru family to the nation, the Rajahmundry MP recalled that YSR expressed his wish soon after winning the elections in 2009 that AP should send at least 41 MPs to the Lok Sabha in 2014 to help Rahul Gandhi become a prime minister.
“We will fulfil the last wish of YSR. Terming Congress an Italian Congress by the former Kadapa MP is nothing but humiliating the association his late father had with the Congress. YSR used to say he was a foot soldier of the Congress,” Aruna Kumar said.
The MP accused Jagan of targeting AICC president Sonia Gandhi though his father made several visits to Delhi to persuade her to come into active politics at a time when the Congress was rudderless.
YSR had a great respect for late Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi and he used to rouse audience at public meetings by raising slogans in support of Sonia Gandhi.
“I am a witness to this. Since 1982, I have been interpreting the speeches of Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. I have seen with my eyes the kind of adoration the late YSR had for them,” Aruna Kumar said.
He said it was because of the Congress YSR grew in political life. After winning Kadapa Lok Sabha seat with a thin margin in 1996, YSR was in a dilemma when midterm elections came in 1998.
It was then Sonia Gandhi made him the PCC president and when the Congress lost the elections in the state in 1999, he was made the CLP leader.
The MP said he and other Congress leaders have regard for Jagan as son of the late “YSR. But YSR belongs to all of us,” he said.
—-Agencies