Hyderabad: Some Seemandhra ministers who are loyal to the party high command are planning to form a team of “true Congressmen” who will stand by the party.
Ten Seemandhra ministers form the core group, who will meet after January 3 to discuss their future course of action.
The main agenda of the team is to strengthen the party in the Seemandhra region and fight for development of the region in the wake of the state’s bifurcation. Though the team will oppose the bifurcation, they will remain loyal to the party.
In the second step, true Congressmen from among Seemandhra MLAs will be identified.
The ministers who see themselves as “true Congressmen” are Botsa Satyanarayana, Kondru Murali, P. Balaraju, Thota Narasimham, Kanna Laxminarayana, Dokka Manikya Varaprasad, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, M. Mahidhar Reddy, N. Raghuveera Reddy, and Ahamdullah. Union minister Panabaka Laxmi is also part of the group.
These ministers feel that the Congress in the Seemandhra region is not in such a bad position as assumed by some of their colleagues.
They believe that if they work hard to strengthen the party, the Congress could perform well in the coming general elections.
The plan is to conduct huge public meetings in the Seemandhra region. While YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and Telugu Desam chief N. Chandrababu Naidu are touring the Seemandhra region and addressing public meetings, no one is countering them from the Congress.
In the meeting that will be held after January 3, the venues and other details will be discussed, Murali told reporters.
He said if some ministers and MLAs from Seemandhra leave the Congress, it will not damage the party in any way as there are 200 to 300 second line leaders in every Assembly constituency.
He clarified that they will continue to oppose the bifurcation and demand that a resolution in favour of united AP?be passed in the Assembly and there is no compromise on that but they want a discussion on the Telangana Bill in the Assembly because if there is no discussion the Centre may think that they have supported the Bill.
Meanwhile, Union ministers Panabaka Laxmi and Killi Kruparani said that if anyone wants to leave the party, they are free to do so as there are many leaders to fill in their places.
