Kirans cold attitude triggered defection of T Congress MLAs -CM Kept Quiet When They Announced Resignation Decision

Even though PCC president Botsa Satyanaryanana and deputy chief minister Damodara Raja Narasimha brushed aside the defection of three ruling party MLAs to TRS as inconseque-ntial,the decision of Jupalli Krishan Rao,S Rajaiah and Somarapu Satyanarayana has come as a jolt to the Congress. The T-MLAs quit the party and joined the TRS on Sunday when chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and Botsa were basking in the glory of their success in persuading the employees to call off their 42-day Sakala Janula Samme. A day after,several Telangana leaders are of the view that more defections are likely in the coming days unless the CM and PCC chief take corrective measures. The sudden decision of the MLAs is being attributed more to chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddys unfriendly attitude than to the Telangana cause.In fact,the decision of these MLAs was being viewed with sympathy rather than as an act of betrayal,an MP told TOI from Delhi.The decision of the MLAs is said to have been aided by the results of a survey conducted by an MP on the acceptability of the party among the people in the region.According to the survey,the acceptability levels of Congress MLAs and MPs fell drastically after their resignations were rejected by speaker Nadendla Manohar. Our rating had gone up unusually when we resigned from the Assembly and had even surpassed the image of TRS.But people started losing faith in us when we could not get our resignations accepted.At present,our acceptability among the people is dismal, said the Congress MP quoting the results of the survey. After the successful Sakala Janula Samme and the high commands inability to clinch the issue,the Congress MLAs are certain that it is virtually impossible for them to win the 2014 election or even if a snap poll is forced on them. The CM did not once telephone either Rajaiah or Satyanarayana when they announced their resignation a fortnight ago. Both the MLAs quit the party because of the casual attitude of Kiran Kumar Reddy, a party MP told TOI. According to him,Satayanarayana was upset by domination of civil supplies minister D Sridhar Babu in Karimnagar district, while Rajaiah was unable to carve space for himself in a district dominated by two ministers Ponnala Laskmaiah and Basavaraj Saraiah.The chief minister is not bothered to sort out these differences in the districts.Instead,he continued with his nobody-matters style of functioning, said a senior leader. As for Rajaiah,if he has to take on the formidable TDP leader Kadiam Srihari in Station Ghanpur constituency,he has to either become a militant Telangana advocate or should have the support from the government to retain his supporters in the area.When he lacks both,the sure way to win the future election is to go with the TRS, said the leader. The same is the case with Satyanarayana who is being dwarfed by minister Sridhar Babu even in his own constituency of Ramagundam. The TRS is using the election-blues among the Congress MLAs,who are either financially not sound or victims of caste favouritism of the chief minister,in its favour sources in the TCongress said. Meanwhile,following speculation that the T Congress MPs are also likely to follow suit and joint the TRS,all the eight MPs met in New Delhi on Monday and told the media that they would remain with the Congress.However,they met many senior party leaders such as Motilal Vora and Pawan Kumar Bansal and briefed them about the situation in the Congress party in the state. No selfish motive behind joining TRS Stepping up their offensive against the Congress leadership,the three Congress MLAs who joined TRS on Sunday said time is running out for the Centre on the contentious Telangana issue.They said if the government announces Telangana,they would make renewed efforts to merge TRS with Congress.At a press meet in Mahbubnagar on Monday,Jupalli Krishna Rao,T Rajaiah and Somarapu Satyanarayana said they had quit Congress only in support of the Telangana cause and denied selfish motives behind joining TRS.They said that the people and followers would hang them if they did not take a firm stand in support of the Telangana cause.The MLAs said the very purpose of resigning from Congress was to build pressure on the high command and also on the ministers and MLAs.Meanwhile,deputy chief minister Damodar Rajanarasimha lambasted the MLAs for pursuing their personal agenda. (Source-toi)

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