YSR Congress suspects that four more MLAs will leave the party to join Telugu Desam party soon. According to sources in the party, YSRC president YS Jaganmohan Reddy has no hopes on these MLAs, who did not respond to the call he gave to the party MLAs for the emergency meeting on Monday at Lotus Pond office.
These MLAs are : Kalamata Venktaramana (Patapatnam, Srikakulam district), Sarveswara Rao (Araku, Visakhapatnam district), Y Sai Prasad Reddy (Adoni, Kunool district) and Y Balanagireddy (Mantralayam, Kurnool district).
“These four MLAs skipped the meeting. They did not even inform party president Jaganmohan Reddy about their absence. We believe that they are leaving,” an insider of Lotus Pond told telugu360.com on condition of anonymity.
About 49 MLAs have attended the meeting which began at 9 am on Monday. The emergency meeting was called with ample notice and all MLAs had been instructed not to skip the meeting at any cost. Few MLAs such as Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, Sujay Krishna Rangarao , who is abroad, are said to have informed the leader about their absence. Similarly, Mekapati Gowth Reddy also skipped the meeting.” The party doesn’t harbor any doubts about the loyalty of these MLAs,” the sources exuded confidence. But it is difficult to brand any MLAs as loyal in the prevailing political culture of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Jagan’s one-on-one meetings with MLAs
Indicating a change in the Jagan’s attitude towards MLAs, he had confidential one-on-one meetings with MLAs, which is rare. Instead of subjecting the MLAs to his harangue on party and programs, Jagan chose to call every MLA for one-on-meeting for five to ten minutes.” He thought of calling the suspect-MLAs alone for heart-to-heart talk . But the danger is that they would get identified and it would hasten the process of their defection. Not to give an impression that he was talking to blacksheep in the party, Jagan began one-on-one meeting with all MLAs,” party sources said.
In these meetings, Jagan assured them that they would be given appropriate importance in the party. He would taken them into confidence when he would finalize the party programs. Jagan is said to have told them how Naidu was getting unpopular among the people and how the chances of YSRCP winning the 2019 elections are getting improved with every passing day,” the sources said.
YSR Congress suspects that Naidu was targeting tribal MLA from Araku, Visakhapatnam district to weaken the opposition to Bauxite project. The party has intelligence that Araku MLA has been trapped by Naidu.
Unanswered questions
1. Why did MLA Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy (Punganur) choose to skip the meeting. Is he worried about the cases booked on his son and Rajampet MP Peddireddy Mithun Reddy in the Tirupati airport manager assault case?
2. Why Sujay Krishna Rangarao (Bobbili) chose to go abroad. Has he skipped the meeting to avoid face off with Jagan amid the reports that he was contacted by TDP middlemen with the request to quit the party and join TDP?
3. There is lot of speculation about Mekapati Gowtham Reddy (Atmakur) among the party circles. Even though some argue that the son of MP Mekapati Rajagopal Reddy doesn’t leave the party, an equal number of MLAs have got their own doubts about the Mithun also, given the fragile loyalties among the MLAs.
Meanwhile, MLAs Kakani Govardhan Reddy, K Sridhar Reddy, Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, Narayanaswamy and G Eswari said all the MLAs present in the meeting reaffirmed their loyalty to YSR Congress and Jaganmohan Reddy.
They alleged that chief minister Naidu is wooing the YSRCP MLAs only to divert the attention from the plight of the Yellow party in Telangana where 10 out of 15 MLAs left the TDP and joined ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).
