Rosaiah axed for not performing

The decision on change of guard in Andhra was on Congress agenda for months.

Even as it came a surprise to many, who thought the Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah was summoned to the Capital on Tuesday to discuss action against the party rebel Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, the change of the leadership in the state was doing rounds in the Congress for a few months now.

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Rosaiah, 77, the senior most minister and uncontroversial Congress leader was the only safe choice, initially a stop gap, the party had following YSR helicopter crash in September 2009 - especially when a campaign was launched to support Jaganmohan for the top post..

Though, the Congress party maintained that it did not ask for the CMs' resignation and 'he relinquished the post', the decision that unfolded was on the basis of assessment of Rosaiah's performance as the chief minister for 14 months and three weeks.

The party went by the feedback that in place of strengthening the government, the aging Rosaiah, battling ill health, failed in delivering even average results.

But what was ironical is the timing - instead of initiating action against Jaganmohan, who last week poured venom against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, the action against Rosaiah seems is for not tackling Jaganmohan's attacking strides among other failures.

Though the plan was to let Rosaiah stay till first quarter of 2011 and change after assessing the Srikrishna committee report on Telangana, according to analysts the party nodded for the resignation and a rejig as they wanted a strong leader from the powerful Reddy community to put check to Jagan's tirade against 10 Janpath. The state is very important for Congress - it successively sent 29 and 33 MPs out of total 42 seats to 14th and 15th Lok Sabha letting Congress form the UPA government.

And the show has to continue for the UPA to do a hat trick.