Nearly nine months after a futile bid to succeed his father Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Congress MP from Kadapa, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy launched a frontal attack on state Chief Minister K. Rosaiah on Wednesday.
Reddy charged the state government with having failed to implement the welfare schemes initiated by his father, who died in a helicopter crash last September.
“I bow my head in shame that the government has not been paying pensions to old people and the handicapped and that no loans with subsidised interest are being given to farmers and women’s self-help groups. I will fight till my last breath to see that my father’s programmes are implemented. If necessary, we will launch an agitation,” he told reporters.
Though this is the first time Reddy has lambasted Rosaiah directly, his followers and his newspaper group Sakshi have been critical of the state government’s policies from the beginning.
“Jagan (Mohan Reddy) was never reconciled to denial of the chief minister’s post after an overwhelming majority of MLAs signed a letter in his favour. He now thinks he has waited long enough and last month’s Consolation Tour, which evoked a tremendous public response, has given him a big boost,” said a Congress MLA.
Reddy was apparently waiting to hit back after Rosaiah pulled up some ministers loyal to him last week for failing to defend the government in the face of a series of negative reports published by Sakshi newspaper.
{{/usCountry}}Reddy was apparently waiting to hit back after Rosaiah pulled up some ministers loyal to him last week for failing to defend the government in the face of a series of negative reports published by Sakshi newspaper.
{{/usCountry}}The infighting was accentuated after Congress MP R. Samabasiva Rao alleged that there were “many Madhu Kodas” in the Rosaiah government and urged the chief minister to weed them out. Rao did not name any minister but there was little doubt that his barb was directed at some of Reddy’s loyalists. Stung by the chief minister’s reprimand, one minister, S. Vijayarama Raju even offered to resign while some others protested, asking Rosaiah not to doubt their sincerity.