HYDERABAD: As expected, Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy did the talking while all others sat like students listening to them at the second Congress Coordination Committee meeting, which lasted for more than three hours, at Gandhi Bhavan here on Saturday.If there were firworks at first meeting on January 5 when some members cornered Kiran Kumar Reddy, Saturday’s meeting was a picture of total contrast. Azad told PCC president Botcha Satyaranayana to lend maximum support to Kiran Kumar Reddy in view of the challenges ahead— by-elections to the Assembly and local body polls, implying that he should not do anything that might cause discomfiture to the chief minister.He is reported to have hinted that the party would not tolerate any kind of groupism in the Congress and that all of them should work shoulder to shoulder and help the party become stronger. Azad told Botcha to draw up programmes to bring about a sort of awakening among the people on what the state and the Centre were doing for their benefit so that the Congress would be able to reap electoral harvest from the welfare schemes that were being implemented.After the chief minister had elaborated on what his government had been doing for the last one year, Azad stressed that the government should ensure that all the promises made in the 2009 election manifesto be implemented in toto. As of now, except two promises— distribution of subsidy rice at the rate of 6 kg per each member of a beneficiary family and supply of power for seven hours to the farm sector— all others have been implemented. Before long,the government should get round to them too, he suggested.Kiran Kumar Reddy and a few other members of the committee pointed out that the government was spending more money on welfare schemes now than what had been spent during YSR rule during 2004-09. Therefore, public acceptance of the Congress rule should be more now, he claimed.Among the other subjects that came up for discussion at the meeting attended by all the members were the Pranahita-Chevella and Polavaram Indira Sagar irrigation projects, impending by-elections and the attempts by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and N Chandrababu Naidu to cut into the Congress vote bank in coastal districts with their whirlwind tours.Botcha, known for his aggression and dynamism, apparently adopted a low profile as Azad tried to cool down the chief minister who has been feeling hurt over denial of opportunity to recast his cabinet. Azad is understood to have told all the other members to strengthen Kiran Kumar Reddy’s hands so that the party’s image would be refurbished.According to Botcha, Chiranjeevi did not raise the issue of allocation of “unimportant” portfolios to his two MLAs— Ghanta Srinivasa Rao and C Ramachandraiah. Similarly, Telagnana representatives did not complain about the composition of the cabinet which was loaded heavily in favour of Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.
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