HYDERABAD: PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana and deputy chief minister Damodar Rajanarasimha have been invited to New Delhi, allegedly to be chastened by high command functionaries for making things difficult for chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy at the party-government coordination committee meeting at Gandhi Bhavan Wednesday.
There is understood to be suspicion in the high command that Satyanarayana, who is said to eye the chief minister’s chair, was behind Rajanarasimha’s outburst at Kiran Kumar Reddy at the meeting, which was presided over Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Satyanarayana left for Delhi Saturday evening to receive the purported admonishment, while Rajanarasimha is likely to go Sunday.
It was not clear who they will meet in the capital but it is expected that they will return to Hyderabad much chastened for leaking information to the media on the “authoritarian” ways of Kiran Kumar Reddy. The high command is said to be concerned that coordination committee members cast aside the norms of party discipline and targeted the chief minister for the ears of Azad.
“The very first meeting of the coordination committee was a fiasco. God only knows how future meetings will turn out to be. The committee is dividing the party more than it is uniting it,” said one senior leader of the party.
The chief minister is said to be very upset over reports that Rajanarasimha cornered him for not attacking the party’s bete noir Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and for not discussing with his cabinet colleagues the government programmes that he intends to take up. The deputy is also said to have washed similary dirty linen before Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee whom he accompanied to Tirupati Friday night.
According to the senior leader, Rajanrasimha is using loose cannon minister P Shankar Rao to fan dissent against the chief minister. Rajanarasimha’s peeve is said to be that he has not been given the home portfolio which rests with Sabita Indra Reddy. Interestingly, Shankar Rao has been having a go at Sabita as well.
As for Botcha Satyanarayana, he is said to be positioning himself to be an alternative should the party decide to replace Kiran Kumar. Health minister D L Ravindra Reddy is said to be another dissident, having developed a bruised ego over entrusting the emergency medical service 108 to the GVK Group.
A supporter of Kiran Kumar said these ministers are sore with the chief minister for not obliging their requests for favours such as going easy on corruption charges against some officers.
One of the Kiran Kumar men is said to have gone to Delhi to fill Union home minister P Chidambaram’s ears with the chief miniter’s version of the proceedings of the coordination committee.