NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: In an unexpected development, the Congress leadership on Tuesday night directed Chief Minister K Rosaiah to convene an emergency meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) here on Wednesday.
Union Law Minister and party’s AP affairs in-charge Veerappa Moily is flying down to Hyderabad to attend the CLP meet. In all likelihood, the CLP may discuss the implications of the “anti-Sonia” programme aired on Kadapa MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s Sakshi TV recently.
Though sections inimical to Rosaiah circulated reports of an imminent change of guard, highly-placed sources ruled out the same.
The decision to convene the meeting was taken within a couple of hours after Rosaiah returned from a short visit to the national capital during which he met Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel and AICC disciplinary committee chairman AK Antony. He is understood to have briefed Antony on Jagan’s controversial TV show and increased muscle-flexing by his followers.
It is learnt that he spoke to Sonia over the phone. Indications are that the CLP may adopt two resolutions: one, condemning the Sakshi programme which blamed Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for ruining the party’s prospects across the country and second, reiterating faith in the leadership of the party president.
Late in the night, both the Chief Minister’s Office as well as the CLP sent out messages to party legislators, MPs and MLCs to attend the meeting at 6:30 p.m on Wednesday.
A similar invitation was extended to Jagan who has been camping in Bangalore.
More than one reason is being cited for the sudden move. The apparent reason seems to be to assess the strength of Jagan in the CLP given that the young man is stretching things a bit too far of late virtually forcing the party high command to act against him.
The view that emerged in Delhi is that instead of directly acting against Jagan, it is better to first take the MLAs into confidence so that it could crack the whip on YSR’s son as and when it likes. Usually, CLP meetings are not called before taking action against an MP, but the Congress leadership wants to be on a firmfooting as the MP here is the son of a former chief minister.
Besides, the Congress leadership is also not comfortable with the message that went across after Rosaiah returned from Delhi. Reports in the media had said the party was in no mood to take on Jagan for the time being _ a message the party cadre saw as a wrong signal as it meant the high command was either unwilling or afraid of taking on Jagan.
I n a sense, with Wednesday’s meeting life may come full circle for the Kadapa MP.
Shortly after his father, the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s death, a CLP meeting was called and he was made to propose Rosaiah’s name for chief ministership.
At the time, there was a much more vociferous demand from some of the MLAs for Jagan to be made CM. Like then, this time too, the same MLAs might be forced to endorse Rosaiah.
As for concrete action against Jagan, Delhi’s thinking seems to be that it should let the winter sessions of Parliament and the State Assembly to pass before taking a final call.