Hyderabad, Sept 7 :
As September 9 approaches when the state mourning will be over, the tension is building up in the Congress circles here. On Monday, the scene shifted from Hyderabad to New Delhi with various congress leaders meeting Sonia Gandhi and expressing their opinion on the choice of the leader to succeed the late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
Keshava Rao, the member of the Congress Working Committee met Sonia Gandhi and expressed his unhappiness over the incident which took place in Gandhi Bhavan on Sunday during the condolence meeting.
U Arun Kumar the Congress MP from Rajahmundry and V Hanumantha Rao, member of the Rajya Sabha also met Sonia Gandhi and had consultations. In fact all the leaders who met Sonia Gandhi assured her that they would abide by the High Command’s decision on the choice of the leader.
Meanwhile Jaganmohan Reddy, son of late YSR, and a strong contender for the CM’s post appealed to his supporters to remain calm and honour the decision of Sonia Gandhi on the choice of the leader.
Sonia after discussing with Veerappa Moily, Union Law Minister, instructed him to convey the message to K.V.P. Ramchandra Rao , a loyalist of YSR that supporters of Jagan should refrain from applying pressure tactics.
According to reliable source KVP will be leaving for New Delhi on Monday evening to meet Moily, Ahmed Patel and other senior Congress leaders to appraise them of the latest situation in the Jagan camp.
The candidates in fray for the chief minstership are interim Chief Minister K. Rosaiah, APCC chief D. Srinivas and union minister Jaipal Reddy apart from Jagan for whom majority of the Congress MLAs are rooting. Senior congress leader V Hanuamantha Rao made it clear that he is not in the race for the chair and this is not the time to aspire for any such post.
It is learnt from party circles that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will fly to Hyderabad on Thursday to hold discussion with various groups within the Congress. Among the prominent leaders who backed Jagan for the chief minister’s seat are former chief minister N. Janardhan Reddy and Congress Working Committee member G. Venkatswamy.