Congress brass goes to Delhi

The Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, and the PCC chief Mr D. Srinivas, and scores of other Congress leaders, including ministers, left for New Delhi on Wednesday night amidst reports of a Cabinet reshuffle and selection of candidates for the ensuing Legislative Council polls.

Mr Rosaiah, who will attend the Chief Ministers’ conference convened by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on the price rise issue on Thursday, will take the opportunity to meet the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, to seek her approval for the reshuffle proposals.

It was evident on Wednesday evening, soon after the scheduled cabinet meeting was over, all the ministers followed the Chief Minister to his chambers and each one tried to meet him for a while to express their loyalty fearing some of them may loose their jobs in the proposed cabinet reshuffle.

Not only that all the ministers waited for the Chief Minister to complete his one-on-one meetings and again followed him downstairs to see him off.

The Chief Minister is expected return from Delhi either with approval for the reshuffle or an indication to defer the exercise for now. He is believed to have been advised against going for changes in the Cabinet to avoid trouble from those who would be dropped and from disappointed aspirants.

But, Mr Rosaiah, according to sources, has decided to brief Mrs Gandhi on the pros and cons and follow her decision.

Mr Srinivas also left for Delhi to attend meetings on the organisational elections. He is also expected to meet Mrs Gandhi and seek her nod on his contest the Hyderabad local body seat in the ensuing Council polls.

The former minister, Mr Shabbir Ali, member in the AP Congress coordination panel, is very much in the race for the seat. Both these leaders are from Nizamabad and considered non-locals for the local body elections.

The decision of the Congress president on the fate of Mr Srinivas will also decide his future plans of joining the Rosaiah cabinet as deputy Chief Minister.

Mr Srinivas is expected to talk to the leadership on the nature of the report he has to submit to the Justice Srikrishna panel on the state bifurcation. The Congress has not come out openly on its stand on bifurcation issue so far. But, when the Srikrishna panel wrote to party presidents to spell out their stand on the issue, Mr Srinivas announced that he would submit a report with the advise of the high command. If that will happen, the Congress party stand on Telangana issue would be known for the first time.