YSR son joins hands with TDP against state’s bifurcation.
It’s official. The Congress in Andhra is vertically split. Kadapa MP YS Jaganmohan Reddy took a pro-Andhra stand in Lok Sabha on Tuesday and now Congress MLAs and MPs from Telangana are up in arms against him. Even former party MLAs from the region are openly attacking the man they once backed for the post of CM after his father YSR’s death in a crash.
What angered Congress supporters from Telangana even more was that Jagan joined hands with TDP MPs to protest the state’s division.
After TDP MPs created a din in the House, protesting the government decision on Telangana, Jagan got up from his seat, walked across and shook hands with them. He also held aloft one of the placards the TDP MPs were carrying.
Hours later, he sought to explain the incident, saying he did not want the impression to gain ground that it was only the TDP that was fighting for a united Andhra.
“I was sitting beside an MP from Telangana and when the MPs rose... I too got up, there was so much confusion. There was no way to exhibit that the TDP was not the champion, Chandrababu Naidu is the culprit. He is the one who supported a resolution and changed course.”
Jagan accused the TDP of going back on its word and attempting to break the state. “Had the Congress kept quiet, there would have been violence... On the excuse of a united Andhra... parties such as the TDP, Praja Rajyam did a U-turn.”
Playing the united Andhra Pradesh card, Jagan said, “I do not want to lose any of my Telangana sisters or brothers — we are going to be together like a united family,” he said, adding that he was “not for a separate Telangana, separate Rayalaseema or separate coastal Andhra Pradesh”.
But the harm has been done. “Jagan has breached party discipline. He is going against the party high command’s decision. The high command should take action against him,” Ponnam Prabhakar, an MP from Karimnagar in Telangana, said. Prabhakar is the convener of the committee of MPs from the state.
Though there were allegations that the Kadapa MP was behind the agitation by Congress MLAs and MPs against Telangana to destabilise the K Rosaiah government in the state, there was no concrete evidence to support it.
“Jagan’s statement on Telangana has hurt the sentiments of all Congress workers from the region. Unlike other Congress MLAs and MPs, Jagan should have gone by the high command’s decision,” Jeevan Reddy, a former minister and once close confidant of Jagan’s father, YSR, said.
The party’s 52 MLAs from Telangana region, including 11 ministers, are likely to take an anti-Jagan stand now.
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