Seemandhra ministers on 'Save Congress' mission

Hyderabad: Reconciling to the reality of bifurcation, the Seemandhra Congress leaders have now initiated a damage control exercise to save the party in their region.

Though they had revolted against the party high command for several months and even joined the protests against the division of the state, realization seems to have dawned on a section of the Seemandhra leaders that it was time to stand by the party leadership in this hour of crisis.

Finance Minister A Ramanarayana Reddy and Revenue Minister N Raghuveera Reddy took the initiative and began an exercise aimed at preventing the party from total collapse in Seemandhra.

They called upon the party cadre in the region to back the central leadership in these testing times. They strongly criticized the leaders who were leaving the party to join other parties. The Ministers said that such an attitude amounted to betraying the party that rewarded them with posts and positions of power.

The Ministers also targeted Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy for revolted against the high command and resigning from the post and party membership. However, they maintained that they had cooperated with Kiran till the last hour that he was in office.

Addressing a press conference on Friday, Ramanarayana Reddy and Raghuveera Reddy said that it was wrong to leave the party when it was passing through difficult times.

"Those who enjoyed power when the party was in good position are leaving now when the party is in trouble," they lamented. They called upon Seemandhra Congress leaders to join the efforts to rebuild the party in the region.

Ramanarayana Reddy said that they had met the PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana and informed him about their readiness to work under his leadership in strengthening the party. He said that along with them several other leaders had also promised their support to the PCC president.

He said that though the bifurcation of the state was a painful one, it was imminent and now there was a need to focus on the development of Seemandhra region.

"We will strive for the development of the Seemandhra state." When asked about his opinion on the special package announced by the Centre, Ramanarayan Reddy said that they would go through the details of the package before commenting.

Accepting their failure in seeking suitable compensation to the Seemandhra region, he said that it was a collective failure of all political parties. He also blamed the media for it.

"Whenever a Seemandhra leader made a demand for compensation, the media described him as a separatist and this forced us to be silent," the Minister said.