Congress dumps party seniors

Hyderabad Dec. 1: The Congress high command appears to have dumped the so-called seniors in the state. This has become evident with senior leaders like Mr G. Venkataswamy, Mr V. Hanumantha Rao, Mr M, Satyanarayana Rao, Mr Uppunuthala Purushottam Reddy and Mr Amose losing hope that the party high command will entertain complaints against the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekar Reddy. They have decided not to meet the high command any more. “Why should we complain when they are not listening?” said the former minister, Mr M. Satyanarayana Rao. He even opined that it would be better for the senior leaders not to contest in the next elections. Sources in the Congress party hinted that many of them may not get tickets to contest. The AP Congress affairs in-charge, Mr Veerappa Moily, has not met any of these leaders after the TRS president, Mr K. Chandrasekar Rao said that a senior Congress leader was in touch with him in favour of Telangana.

Though some of these senior leaders tried to step up pressure after Mr Rao’s statement, Mr Moily just ignored and rallied behind the Chief Minister who made it clear that the party chief, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, would take the final call. Initially the senior leaders tried to prevail upon the state leadership to move a resolution in favour of Telangana. They expected some positive action on the issue as the PCC chief, Mr D. Srinivas is dithering on the issue. They were disappointed when the high command clarified through Mr Moily that there was no chance of bowing to pressure on Telangana.

“After coming to know about the high command’s decision, many of these leaders opted not to speak to Mr Moily any more,” said a senior leader. Another senior leader, Mr U. Purushottam Reddy, wondered whom the high command treats as seniors. He said that he was not invited to the senior’s lunch hosted by the PCC president, Mr D. Srinivas recently. Interestingly, there was nobody to respond to the queries of the seniors. This, close aides of the Chief Minister point out was due to the reduced importance given to them. One thing which become clear after this episode is that the high command and senior leaders have lost trust in each other.