Taking serious note of rebel party MP Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s TV channel Sakshi and newspaper attacking party chief Sonia Gandhi, the Congress on Sunday sought a report from its Andhra Pradesh unit in this matter.
“The party has sought a report from the state unit on the issue (telecast of a programme on Sakshi television channel),” AICC media department chairman Janardhan Dwivedi said on Sunday.
Significantly, the TV channel, after attacking Mrs Gandhi on Saturday, had deleted those portions by Sunday.
Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said today that a view on the issue would be taken once the report is received from the state unit. Party sources, however, said that there was no possibility of immediate action against Jaganmohan on the issue.
Senior Congress MP from Andhra Keshav Rao said on Sunday, “We don’t want to make him a martyr. We will wait and watch. The party knows when to act. We know the programme could not have been telecast without his knowledge.”
Sakshi is a 24-hour Telugu news channel owned by Jaganmohan, MP from Kadapa and son of the late Y.S.R. Reddy who was chief minister when he died in a copter crash last year.
The Jagan-owned channel had launched a scathing attack on Mrs Gandhi as well as the organisation in a one-hour programme telecast on Saturday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was also targeted along with the “coterie around Sonia” for the “sorry state of affairs in the Congress”.
A senior party leader said: “Though it is known that the telecast of the programme was done at the behest of Jagan, the party would not like to act in haste as he has not said anything himself.”
He further said that the party has to be “technically correct”.