Defiant Jaganmohan Reddy unlikely to stop

NEW DELHI: Unfazed by warning from the Congress leadership, the late YSR Reddy’s son Jaganmohan Reddy is likely to go ahead with his ‘Odarpu yatra’ from Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasham district on September 3. The message of the Congress leadership that going ahead with the tour could invite disciplinary action against him was conveyed to the Kadappa MP by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday. Mr Reddy was planning to address a public meeting in Tirupati on September 2, his father’s first death anniversary, and then begin the second leg of his yatra from Prakasham.

“He is going to go ahead with the yatra on September 3 as decided,” Ambatti Rambabu, Mr Reddy’s close aide, who was suspended as general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee, was quoted by an agency as saying. Mr Rambabu was suspended for making statements against Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah. He claimed that there was no communication from the high command asking him to call off the yatra.

However, the Congress leadership does not want him to undertake the yatra as it is seen as an attempt by Mr Jaganmohan Reddy, a critic of the Rosaiah government, to mobilise support of legislators against it. Mr Jaganmohan Reddy, who was in the Capital for the Parliament session, has been meeting several party leaders, including Mr Veerappa Moily, who is the AICC general secretary in-charge of AP.

Despite Mr Rosaiah asking his ministers and legislators to stay away from the rally, one of the state ministers B Srinivas Reddy has declared his support for Mr Reddy’s yatra. For Mr Reddy, if he does not take on the Rosaiah regime at this juncture, it may be too late, sources say. Mr Reddy had defied the party high command and gone ahead with the yatra in the sensitive Telangana region on May 28. However, he had to abandon it following violence in Mahabubnagar, where he was to begin it.

Congress had not taken any action against Mr Reddy when he went on a yatra to console families of those who lost their lives due to shock after his father’s death. Party president Sonia Gandhi had expressed disapproval of the yatra he undertook in May. This time, however, the party appears to be taking a more stern stand.