HYDERABAD: It is not proper for one to describe Thursday's cabinet expansion as indicative of his getting an upper hand over chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana has said.
Speaking to mediapersons at Gandhi Bhavan here on Friday, he said that neither he nor the chief minister had any individual agenda and that whatever they were doing were at the instance of the party high command.
``Neither the chief minister nor I would say something today and contradict it tomorrow since we do not own the parties the way some regional party satraps like N Chandrababu Naidu or YS Jagan Mohan Reddy do.'' The PCC chief said Kiran Kumar Reddy would continue as the chief minister till 2014 and the party would would fight the next general election only under his leadership.
Rumours of a change of guard were baseless, he asserted.
Satyanarayana denied that there was dissatisfaction among the Telangana MLAs over denial of berths now.
"Even if a few legislators do feel that way, no harm is done to the party because he and the chief minister would talk to them and see that they would work for the party," he said.
I spoke to Telangana MPs this morning and persuaded them not to damage the image of the party and assured them that the chief minister would take corrective measures soon.'' Referring to TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu describing him as a mafia don, he said that he was honest and went on record saying that his family members were in liquor business.
He had even made it clear that those of his family members who own liquor shops should not sell liquor at a price more than the maximum retail price (MRP).
But Naidu was trying to paint a picture that I was running the liquor business in the state.
Had the High Court not stayed CBI investigation into Naidu's wealth, he would have been in jail by now, counting the bars, the PCC chief remarked.