The Congress tradition of not talking against the Chief Minister or the PCC chief, which in normal circumstances is upheld by every leader in the party, was on Saturday completely disregarded. Leader after leader in the party used the Congress Legislature Party office as a platform to make comments against and in favour of each other and the party’s state leadership.
It all started with information minister D.K. Aruna coming down heavily on the senior leaders belongs from Telangana. She said, “It is because of their talk against the party and its interests that we have lost the seats in Telangana. We could have brought more pressure on the party high command to concede Telangana had the party won all the seats.”
She expressed surprise over health minister D.L. Ravindra Reddy tendering his resignation, owning moral responsibility for the party debacle. “How can a minister who belongs to Kadapa resign when the elections were held in Telangana? Why did he not resign when he lost his deposit in Kadapa Lok Sabha bypoll last year?” she questioned. Congress MLCs K. Yadav Reddy and K.R. Amos however differed with Ms Aruna, saying that the party candidates could campaign in the bypolls only because of the seniors' efforts on the Telangana issue. “Otherwise you could not have entered the region to campaign. You cannot criticise the seniors and their contribution,” the MLCs said.
They also demanded that the ministers from Telangana go to Delhi and bring statehood or quit from their posts. Objecting to the remarks made by the minister, the MLCs said, “How can we go and campaign when no one invited us or consulted us on the byelections.”
Malkajagiri MP Sarve Satyanarayana, however, supported Ms Aruna's contention and said that there is no need for the Chief Minister or the PCC president to resign for the defeat. He said that the sole purpose of party leaders from Telangana targeting Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy was to grab the Chief Minister post for the region. He wanted to know how many senior leaders had campaigned for the party candidates in the bypolls.
Then came former minister P. Shanker Rao, who reiterated his demand of resignations of the Chief Minister and the PCC chief. Meanwhile, former MP Mallu Ravi and former minister J. Chittaranjan Das appealed to all leaders of the party not to create divisions and encourage splinter groups in the party over the bypoll results.