Compounding the woes of the Kiran Kumar Reddy government, Congress MLA Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy quit his seat in the Assembly on Thursday, as promised.
He, however, made it clear he would continue in the Congress.
One day ahead of his self-imposed deadline of Nov. 30, Ramachandra Reddy, an arch-rival of the chief minister in their native Chittoor district, submitted his papers to speaker N Manohar.
Before handing in his papers, Ramachandra Reddy met PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana at the latter’s residence but refused to heed his advice not to quit. Union minister S Jaipal Reddy also had called Ramachandra Reddy on Wednesday night with similar advice. However, the MLA went ahead anyway.
Speaking to reporters after meeting the speaker, the Punganur MLA released a five-page document stating his reasons.
“Right from day one, I have been opposing the appointmen of Kiran Reddy. When he was made chief minister on 26 Nov. 2010, I categorically expressed my views to the high command, saying he was inefficient and would not be able to lead either the government or the party. That has been proven in the last two years,” he wrote. “I have repeatedly been asking the high command to replace Kiran Reddy but the party leadership took no action in this regard,” he added.
Ramachandra Reddy, a former minister, alleged that ever since he became the CM, Kiran Reddy has stopped all development work in Punganur constituency and harassing his followers.
He alleged that the CM’s brother Kishore Kumar Reddy has become an extra-constitutional authority in Chittoor district and projects were being assigned to TDP workers rather than Congress men.
Ramachandra Reddy wanted to know what prompted Kiran Reddy to slash the price of red sanders by issuing three GOs within three months of becoming the CM.
The MLA further said Kiran Reddy had never held even a small post in the Congress and had no administrative experience. This inexperience was posing a grave threat to the Congress. “He neither pays heed to the advice of seniors nor takes them into confidence while formulating policies. If Kiran Reddy continues in the post till 2014 polls, the Congress will be ruined,” Ramachandra Reddy said.
He alleged that Kiran Reddy, as a member of the Delimitation Commission, gerrymandered the contours of the Pileru segment in order to engineer his defeat.