Where is the ‘magic wand’, Botcha asks

PCC chief bares leaders who claimed that State will not be divided .

The intensified ongoing agitation in the Seemandhra region and the attack on the houses and property of Congress leaders including PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana seems to have widened the differences he has with Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.

At a press conference on Saturday, Botcha fired indirect salvos against the Chief Minister and Vijayawada MP Lagadapati Rajagopal. He found fault with the Chief Minister for the present situation in the State.

He said when the agitation had reached a new high three years back, many leaders claimed that they had ‘magic wand’ and would never allow bifurcation of the State. He said some ‘power hungry’ leaders misled the people by stating that they would keep the State united. He claimed that he had suggested that all should resign en-masse as soon as the Congress Working Committee had announced division of the State. If that had happened, the high command would not have moved forward. But unfortunately, the “big leaders,” did not listen to his suggestion.

He said the leaders who opposed his suggestion, perhaps, wanted to continue in power and stop the political rise of backward leaders in the party. Botcha said that none of his forefathers were politicians. He said, “I have come from an ordinary family that too from backward region and climbed up the ladder to become the PCC president with the blessings of AICC president Sonia Gandhi. But some leaders who belong to the sections which constitute just 5 per cent of the total population in the State want to keep political power only with them," he said.

He said of late, he had become an eyesore for some leaders in the party and it is such people who had launched a negative propaganda against him in regard to his stand on the issue of bifurcation, the PCC president added.

Expressing his anguish over the attacks on his house and property in Vizianagaram, he said he would like to make it clear that he was not the one who would hanker after power or position. He called upon people not to fall prey to murky politics.