Hyderabad: Amid the lengthening shadows of political instability in Andhra Pradesh, the party central leadership has decided to try to maintain the status quo in the state party unit and the government.
As a first step in this direction, the party yesterday announced that senior party leader from Telangana, D Srinivas will continue as the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) President for yet another term. It will be his third term as the state party chief and apparently he was chosen to continue because of the Telangana issue.
The decision to continue with Srinivas was taken at the Congress core committee meeting in New Delhi yesterday. It came as a disappointment to many other senior Congress leaders from Telangana, who were hoping to get a chance to head the party.
Part of a bigger plan
Reacting to the announcement, Srinivas said that he will abide by the decision of the party leadership and discharge whatever responsibility was given to him.
It is believed that continuation of Srinivas was part of a larger formula party was executing to wriggle out of a difficult situation in the state. The next target was to make another senior figure from Telangana — deputy Chief Minister — to placate the feelings of indiscrimination in the region. Party leadership had announced its plan to appoint a deputy chief minister from Telangana two months ago when Kiran Kumar Reddy was appointed the chief minister but it was yet to be implemented. Names of senior ministers from Dalit community J Geeta Reddy and Damodar Rajanarasimha were doing rounds for the position.
The party leadership is also trying to influence its members of the parliament (MPs) from Telangana for not to threaten resignation on the Telangana issue. But during their meeting with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherji, the MPs presented him a one line resolution that the people of Telangana do not want any thing other than Telangana state.
As the chief minister hails from Rayala Seema, the current deputy speaker Nandendla Manohar from coastal Andhra was expected to be elevated as the house speaker.
The party was planning to issue show cause notices to all the 24 members of legislative assembly (MLAs) who had violated party discipline by participating in Jaganmohan Reddy's hunger strike in New Delhi. "If need be we are ready to disqualify all the 24 MLAs and have a by elections to all of them", a senior party leader said.
However such a drastic step will be taken only if the other methods do not work and party gets assurance from the Praja Rajyam Party and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen for support in the state legislative assembly in case of trial of strength.
