HYDERABAD: The demand that a loyalist be chosen as the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief has grown shriller within the party’s ranks. Meanwhile, discontent among the party seniors on this matter was also apparent on Sunday.
Maintaining his pitch on the issue, senior leader V Hanumantha Rao held a press conference demanding that the PCC post be given to a loyalist and not to those who came from outside. On Sunday, he also leaked a letter purportedly written to Sonia Gandhi by Bhadrachalam MLA P Veeraiah and signed by MLAs D Sridhar Babu and Jagga Reddy and MLC Jeevan Reddy, demanding that a loyalist be selected.
“We humbly appeal to you to appoint a Congress loyalist as PCC president of Telangana. Whoever is appointed should have a track record of being faithful to the Congress ideology and loyal to the Gandhi family,” read the letter, which was sent on June 11.
Rao lamented that those who were lobbying for the post were trying their best to stop him from meeting AICC chief Sonia Gandhi and former party chief Rahul Gandhi. Moreover, AICC in-charge Manickam Tagore is not responding to my phone calls, he said. During a virtual press conference, Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka expressed his ignorance about the letter sent to Sonia Gandhi.