ADILABAD: All is not well in the Congress in erstwhile Adilabad district. AICC programmes implementation committee chairman and former Nirmal MLA A Maheswar Reddy, in all likelihood, might join the BJP. The jinx sitting on the Congress does not seem to lift any sooner now as those who come to the party find the habitat a little too suffocating and those who are already there wonder whether it’s time for them to look for greener pastures in other parties. The problem is that the groups within the party do not want outsiders to join them lest they should become a threat to their political survival at some point of time in future.
Last year, Mancherial BRS Zilla Parishad chairperson N Bhagyalaxmi and former Chennur MLA N Odelu joined the Congress at New Delhi in the presence of Sonia Gandhi. But within a few months, they returned to BRS as nobody in the Congress was hospitable to him, not even inviting them to any party programmes in Mancherial district.
Asked to suspend padayatra
The latest to feel ill at ease in the Congress is Maheswar Reddy. He, in fact, recently took out a padayatra from Nirmal to Gandhi Bhavan. It began with fanfare with senior leaders taking part in it. But as it reached Khanapur, he was asked to suspend his padayatra following instructions from the party State in-charge Manikrao Thakre. Later, he wrote to Thakre, seeking why he was asked to suspend his yatra but he got no satisfactory explanation.
Since then, he remained aloof from the party activities and did not participate in the padayatra taken out by CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka which began at Boath on March 16. It is now in progress in Mancherial district. Maheshwar Reddy was elected to the Assembly in 2009 on the PRP ticket and later became a member of Congress after the party merged into the grand old party.