The sulking YSR Congress Party leaders Konatala Ramakrishna and the Konda couple, Surekha and Murali, _ seem to be keeping their party leadership on a guessing game about their future political moves.
The chosen silence of Konatala and the Konda couple on the ongoing speculation that they are preparing the ground to leave the party is only adding credence to these conjectures.
Ramakrishna, who is said to be feeling suffocated in the YSRC soon after the entry of his bete noire Dadi Veerabhadra Rao from the TDP into it, is not unequivocally condemning the reports that he might leave the fledgling party.
Following Union minister Purandeswari’s statement that Konatala would always be a Congress man and she would invite him wholeheartedly if he wanted to join the party, what all Konatala said was that he could not do any thing if Congress leaders started building castles in the air about his future political plans.
But, Konatala has not categorically stated that he would remain in the YSRC forever.
What further fuelled speculation that he might not stay in Jagan’s party was the staying away of his followers in Visakhapatnam district unit of the YSRC to the function, organised to welcome Dadi Veerabhadra Rao to the district, who for the first time went there from Hyderabad after taking the party membership, on Saturday.
The talk in the party circles is that Konatala is still contemplating quitting the party as he is unable to adjust himself to the entry of Dadi into the party.
Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao is said to be trying to bring Konatala back to the Congress fold.
Meanwhile, strong leaders of the party in Telangana Konda Surekha and her husband Murali are understood to have firmed up their decision to quit the party.
Though the YSRC leadership is holding negotiations with the sulking couple to keep them in the party, it is learnt that the couple is in no mood to continue in the party. The immediate provocation for the Konda couple, who have been not happy in the party for the past few months for not giving due priority to them in the party affairs, is that suspension of four of their followers from the party. The party leadership acted against the four followers of the Konda couple for locking up the party office recently.
Following this development, the couple, who have strained relations with the party leadership, are said to have more or less decided to bid adieu to the party.
The couple have not scotched the speculation that they might leave the YSRC so far.