High command decision supreme: Danam

Hyderabad, Sept 15: Minister for Health Danam Nagender on Tuesday made it clear that the state leaders will obey to the Congress High Command decision on the candidature of Y S Jaganmohan Reddy for the post of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister.After convening a meeting with a close aide of late chief minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, K V P Ramachandra Rao at his residence, the Minister said that the high command decision is supreme and all the state leaders will obey to it.“The high command knows the emotions and sentiments of people of Andhra Pradesh and take a favourable decision on the successor of chief minister,” he added.

“The High command will also take a decision on conducting Congress Legislature Party meeting soon,” the Minister said.At the meeting held at K V P Ramachandra Rao’s house, 13 Ministers, two MLAs and one MLC turned up for the meeting. Ministers B Srinivasa Reddy, K Lakshminarayana, G Venkata Reddy, Anam Ramnarayana Reddy, Dharmanna Prasada Rao, Pedireddy Ramachandra Reddy, D K Aruna, Damodhara Rajanarsimha, Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, Chief whip Batti Vikramamarka and MLC jupudi Prabhakar attended the meeting. K V P Ramachandra Rao briefed the deliberations he had with the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, AICC chief Sonia Gandhi, Union Law Minister and AP incharge affairs Veerappa Moily and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.The central leadership of the Congress party is considering Y S Jaganmohan Reddy for the post of Andhra Pradesh chief minister, he said.He told the Ministers that the central leadership would take a decision on this issue very soon.His visit to Hyderabad, meeting with Jagan and other state ministers triggered speculations in political circles here that the leadership was reluctant to name 37-year-old Jagan, a first time parliamentarian, as the next chief minister and has instead offered the post of deputy chief minister or a berth in central cabinet. The leadership is also reportedly ready to appoint him to some key post in the party.An overwhelming majority of the 156 Congress MLAs, who were elected in the 2009 elections, were YSR loyalists and KVP was instrumental in shortlising the candidates, particularly the 74 MLAs who were first-timers.

These loyalists lost no time in demanding that Jaganmohan Reddy should be made the chief minister. They launched a signature campaign even before the body of YSR was brought from Kurnool district (where he died) to the state capital.All this irked the Congress high command. It reportedly felt that KVP was behind the orchestration of support to Jaganmohan Reddy and summoned him to Delhi. KVP is now sweating it out in Delhi explaining that the demand was spontaneous and had not been engineered. However, the Congress leadership kept the successor issue in suspension.KVP’s current goal is to make Jaganmohan Reddy the chief minister. More than anything else, according to people close to him, he wants to do it as a tribute to his late friend YSR who had been grooming his son as his political successor. Will he succeed? It remains to be seen.However, if we look at his track record, one thing is certain. He is unlikely to withdraw his efforts in this regard. For three decades, he did the spadework to pave the way for YSR to become chief minister and there is no reason to believe he will not do the same now to ensure that the son of the departed leader occupies the coveted position.