Prakasam Cong Legislators not to participate in Odarpu

Congress leaders from Prakasam district on Friday met Pradesh Congress Committee president D Srinivas at his residence, ostensibly to discuss the strategy to be adopted in wake of the Kadapa MP YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s scheduled Odarpu Yatra in the district from September 3.

The Congress leaders’ confabulation with the PCC chief assume importance since the party High Command had passed a diktat that the party leaders stay away from the Odarpu yatra.

Prakasam district Congress chief Pothula Rama Rao later told media persons that he was confident that all Congress leaders from the district would follow the High Command’s directive.

MLA Daggubati Venkateswara Rao was among the leaders who had met Mr Srinivas on Friday. He refused to take any questions from the media and only said that the meeting was a courtesy call.

Mr Daggubati and his wife Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development D Purandareswari had come under fire from the supporters of the Kadapa MP after she conveyed the High Command’s message to the media.

Ms Purandareswari had said that the Odarpu Yatra should be taken out under the banner of the Congress party and the compensation should be paid to the kin of those who died of shock on hearing the news of former chief minister late YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s death from the Congress party’s kitty.

The MoS had said that she was merely quoting AICC president Sonia Gandhi and the words were not her own, but the Kadapa MP’s supporters were in no mood to listen.