HC likely to tell CM to tone down anti-Jagan tirade

The Congress High Command will, in all probability, direct Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy to bring his ‘anti-Jagan’ campaign to a screeching halt soon.

Indications to this effect began to emerge after senior Congress leaders have reportedly sent a report to the High Command that they believe that by continuously targeting the YSR family, the Chief Minister is eroding the support from among the people who look at the former chief minister as a ‘messiah’.

Added to this, the Telugu Desam Party has seized on Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy’s statement that he helped the former Kadapa leader escape from being implicated in a murder case.

The Telugu Desam Party has seized on the Chief Minister’s statement that he had saved former Kadapa MP YS Jaganmohan Reddy from being implicated in the Paritala Ravi murder case.  Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday repeated his demand that that Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy has no moral right to continue in office after helping someone escape justice.

According to highly placed sources, the Congress High Command has been informed by the senior leaders in AP that the challenges thrown by the Chief Minister, daring the Jagan camp to pull down his government has also had a very negative impact, with some of the MLAs beginning to doubt whether it would be safe to continue sitting on the political fence.

The senior Congress leaders also are fearful that taking support from the Praja Rajyam Party to retain the numerical strength in the state Assembly is also contributing to the erosion of party base in Telangana region. The TRS can use the alliance between the Congress and the PRP, an avowedly pro-Integrated Andhra Pradesh party, to drive home the point that the party is not in favour of bifurcation of the state.

Added to this, Mr Jaganmohan Reddy has himself started to take advantage of the Chief Minister’s statements against him by invoking public sympathy and cornering the support of 25-30 MLAs.

Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy will go to New Delhi in the next week, sources say. The same sources say that he would be told to cut down on his anti-Jagan tirade and concentrate on keeping the drifting party MLAs in check.