Sake Sailajanath appointed Andhra Pradesh Congress chief

The post of APCC chief has been lying vacant for the last eight months since the resignation of senior leader N Raghuveera Reddy.

Senior Congress leader and former minister in the combined Andhra Pradesh Sake Sailajanath was on Thursday appointed as the president of Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC).

Sake Sailajanath was on Thursday appointed as the president of Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee

A communication to this effect was released by All India Congress Committee general secretary K C Venugopal in the evening. Apart from Sailajanth, two other senior leaders N Tulasi Reddy and Shaik Mastan Vali were appointed as APCC working presidents.

The post of APCC chief has been lying vacant for the last eight months since the resignation of senior leader N Raghuveera Reddy. He had put in papers on May 19 last year, within hours after the exit polls predicted a complete route of the Congress in the general elections.

Reddy had written repeated reminders to accept his resignation and later announced that he was taking a sabbatical from politics. The party high command considered several names to replace him as the APCC chief, including former chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, six-time MP Chinta Mohan and former Union minister M M Pallam Raju.

But finally, the AICC chose Sailajanath, a Dalit leader from Anantapur district. A two-time MLA from Singanamala (SC) constituency, Sailajanath served as government whip during the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government and was later elevated to the cabinet during the Kiran Kumar Reddy government as education minister.

He was a strong votary for united Andhra Pradesh and also led the Joint Action Committee of political parties for the United Andhra Pradesh. He, however, lost the election in 2014 after the bifurcation of the state and had been maintaining low profile since then.