Botcha, Azad pacify Chiranjeevi, avert crisis

Hyderabad: Even as Congress bete noire YS Jagan Mohan Reddy tried to keep his flock of Congress MLAs together, it was Chiranjeevi who gave ruling party the jitters on Saturday after Speaker N Manohar announced that the no-confidence motion against the government initiated by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu was admitted.

Jagan Mohan Reddy, who cut short his Odarpu Yatra in Guntur district and rushed to Hyderabad on Friday night, held a meeting with about 21 MLAs at his Lotus Pond residence in Hyderabad and told them either to vote against the government and stay with him or choose their own course.

Within hours, legislator Kunja Satyavathi said she wanted to support Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and not willing to pull down the government brought in by the late YSR. "I will support Kiran Reddy government because he is carrying out the schemes of YSR," she said. But clearly the day belonged to Chiranjeevi who was feeling letdown by the silence of the Congress on keeping its promises even months after PRP-Congress merger in February.

"Our MLAs are unhappy that the Congress bosses are ignoring them as though they did not exist and, on the other hand, they were rolling out red carpet to the MLAs returning from the Jagan-camp," Chiranjeevi told newsmen.

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His words followed by a meeting with his MLAs to discuss their plan for the no-confidence motion appeared to have scared the Congress. The PRP leaders also spread word that they were even considering asking the MLAs to vote in accordance with the call of their conscience when the no-confidence motion comes up for voting in the Assembly.

Learning about the meeting and the mood in the PRP camp, PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana spoke to AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and briefed him on the grievances of the PRP legislators who were seeking their due from the Congress. Extracting some assurances from Azad, Satyanarayana rushed to Chiranjeevi's residence and placed them before him. Later, Chiranjeevi also spoke to Azad, who, sources said, promised to immediately get round to the issue and sought cooperation from Chiranjeevi in defeating Chandrababu Naidu's no-trust motion with a convincing majority.

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Now, there appears no problem for Kiran Reddy government in getting the support of all the 17 MLAs of the PRP. But, in the end, a doubt lingered if Botcha assumed the role of a trouble shooter and helped the Congress in tiding over the problem only to upstage Kiran Kumar Reddy, especially in the wake of the growing rift between them lately.