Will Congress mend fences with Jagan?

HYDERABAD: Is the Congress high command amenable to mending its fences with YSR Congress Party leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy? This question crops up with AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi's 'spies' discreetly eliciting the opinions of ministers and legislators on the party's prospects in elections if it mends its fences with YSR's son.

Two of Rahul's emissaries, Jitendra Desh Prabhu and Viswajit Rane, spent considerable time discussing this aspect with ministers at the state Assembly here.

The emissaries, who hail from Goa, are entrusted with the work of assessing the performance of the sitting MPs and the state of the party in their constituencies.

'I have told them that if the Congress decides to welcome Jagan back into the party, it will have do it on his terms: offer him the chief minister's post and help him get out of all the cases registered against him.

In the first place, there is no guarantee that he will agree to return to the Congress,' minister DL Ravindra Reddy told reporters after meeting the emissaries.

Reddy said he had told them that it would be better if Jagan Mohan Reddy got bail since the longer he stayed in jail, the more sympathy would pour in for him.

He suggested that elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly be held separately to avert a disaster for the party. He also told them that the government in the state was in a shambles but the party was not yet in such a run-down condition though its state too was not very encouraging.

Another minister, Ahmadulla, however, told Rahul's men that the Congress' prospects would brighten if Jagan returned to the party.

A minister from Guntur district, Kasu Venkata Krishna Reddy, explained to the two observers the circumstances in which Jagan Mohan Reddy had left the party and the kind of damage he inflicted on the Congress. He, however, did not disclose to media persons his stance on inviting Jagan back into the party.

The two performance inspectors, who arrived in Hyderabad two days ago, have already met PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana. On Saturday, after interacting with the ministers, they called on chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.

They also probed whether the Congress would stand to gain in Rayalaseema if Telangana was granted statehood. Minister Erasu Pratap Reddy, who hails from Rayalaseema, said he had suggested clubbing of Telangana and Rayalaseema in case of state's bifurcation.

'I have told them that the state of the party is not very encouraging at present. If formation of a Rayala Telangana state is announced, it will help the Congress,' Pratap Reddy said.

The two observers focused on the constituencies in Rayalaseema and most of their enquiries were about the performance and popularity of sitting MPs and their prospects of re-election and also about alternative candidates.

There is one more performance appraiser, Prashanth Thakur, who is in charge of Telangana, Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram. At present, he is doing a survey on the prospects of the Congress in the next elections whenever they are held.

The other ministers whom the observers consulted included P.Balaraju, S.Sailajanath, M.Maheedhar Reddy, Vatti Vasanth Kumar and Pithani Satayanarayana.