Hyderabad:
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy is expected to arrive in Delhi on Thursday to meet Sonia Gandhi and other Central leaders to discuss the latest crisis in the state.
On Tuesday, a delegation of 24 ministers arrived at Mr Reddy's camp office in Hyderabad in a show of solidarity for Roads and Buildings minister Dharmana Prasad Rao who resigned last week after he was named an accused in the fourth chargesheet filed by the CBI in the Jagan Mohan Reddy disproportionate assets case.
The Congress government has not yet taken a decision on Mr Rao's resignation. His cabinet colleagues want the chief minister and the state Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana to convey to the party leadership that they are worried that the party image and its future prospects will take a beating if its ministers are seen as guilty.
Finance minister Anam Ramnarayana who led the delegation said the government must take legal opinion on whether an individual minister can be held accountable for a collective cabinet decision.
"Yesterday it was Mopidevi, today it is Dharmana Prasad Rao, tomorrow it could be someone else. We want them to check legally if cabinet decisions can become responsibility of individual ministers," Ramnarayana said.
Former excise minister Mopidevi Venkatramana is already in jail since May 25 in another case. Four other ministers have also been asked by the Supreme Court to explain their role in issuing 26 government orders during the time that YSR was chief minister. Those orders are said to have benefitted YSR's son Jaganmohan Reddy.
These developments come even as Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy has been fighting virtually with his back to the wall even as those aspiring to replace him and his critics inside and outside the party have been talking about how he may not last long in his seat. Reddy has been touring all over the state trying to popularise the welfare policies of his government, even renaming some schemes, to drive home the point that the welfare policies on the basis of which YSR became popular are actually policies initiated by the Congress government.