Congress stakes claim to form govt

Hyderabad: Congress leaders, led by Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, TPCC president A Revanth Reddy, N Uttam Kumar Reddy and others, met Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and staked claim to form the government.

It may be recalled that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had resigned in the evening. The Congress Legislature Party is now scheduled to meet on Monday morning. The Central observers like D K Shivakumar, Manikrao Thakre and others will also meet the newly elected MLAs individually and seek their opinion on the new chief ministerial candidate. They will then submit a report to the party high command for final decision. The Monday meeting will also decide whether the new government should take oath immediately or to take oath at the L B Stadium as planned earlier.

Though the party leaders have taken care to see that no senior leader makes any comment on the new CM’s name, speculations are rife that Revanth Reddy would be the first choice and that he would take oath on Tuesday.

Sources said that AICC senior leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi gave their nod to elect Revanth Reddy as the CLP leader, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Sitakka will be Deputy CMs. Senior Congress leaders D Sridhar Babu, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, Damodar Raja Narasimha, Vivek Venkata Swamy and Vinod are likely to be inducted into the Cabinet.

Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony likely to be held on Tuesday. On December 9, the Congress would hold a public meeting at the L B Stadium and the first Cabinet would also meet on that day. December 9 happens to be the birthday of Sonia Gandhi and also the day when separate Telangana was announced by the Congress.