High drama at T CLP meet

• Furore over election of DS as T Council leader
• Rajalingam alleges he was offered Rs 10 lakh by DS
• Shabir Ali made Deputy Leader
• Jana Reddy elected Leader of CLP in Telangana
• Ramachandriah is Seemandhra Council Leader
• No CLP leader in Seemandhra as Cong did not win a seat

Hyderabad: It was a day of high drama at the Congress Legislature party office where even senior Congress leaders almost revolted against the party high command’s style of functioning right in front of AICC general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijay Singh and other senior leaders like Vylar Ravi, Thirunavakkarasu and Ramachandra Kuntia. The AICC leaders came from New Delhi to Hyderabad to conduct the election of leaders of the legislature party and Council of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The AICC leaders first held one-on-one meeting with the Telangana MLCs and sought their opinion on who should be the leader in the T Council and suggested to them that the former PCC president D Srinivas could be a good choice. Later they chaired the meeting of the TCLP and elected former PCC president D Srinivas as leader of opposition in the Council. Enraged over this, senior MLC Rajalingam expressed his disapproval and said that the AICC did not seem to have learnt any lesson from the elections despite suffering a serious setback in the state.

He said D Srinivas had lost the Assembly elections and had failed to strengthen the party and now such a person had been made the leader of Congress party in the Council. He said Srinivas was too keen to become the TCLP leader and had even tried to buy him for Rs 10 lakh. “Srinivas sent Rs 10 lakh to my house on Monday night,” Rajalingam alleged. It is said five MLCs, Bhupal Reddy, B Bhanu Prasad, Yadav Reddy and Jagadish Reddy were among those who objected to the name of Srinivas. Congress has 17 MLCs in the Council.

The drama did not end there. Another senior MLC Shabbir Ali who was among the aspirants was also upset and was about to leave the venue when the AICC leaders intervened and announced that he would be the deputy leader in the Council as part of damage control exercise. Shabbir who later addressed the media along with Srinivas made a curt statement saying that senior leaders from the AICC had decided that he should be the deputy leader and that he would work for strengthening the party.

The AICC leaders also supervised the election of the leader of Assembly in Telangana and Council in Seemandhra. While K Jana Reddy has been elected as the leader of T Assembly, C Ramachandraiah is the leader of the Council for Seemandhra. Briefing newsmen after the meeting, Singh said all the MLAs unanimously elected Jana Reddy. Singh said, “We hope he along with other Congress leaders will work as a constructive opposition and also strive hard to strengthen the party.” The Congress MLAs should work as custodians of Telangana, he added. Jana Reddy said he would work hard for the strengthening of the party aiming to bring the Congress to power in 2019 election. He sought the support of all Congress leaders and cadre to revive the party in the coming days.