HYDERABAD: Senior Congress leader and minister Botsa Satyanarayana will be the new Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief. AICC media cell chairman Janardhan Dwivedi announced his appointment this evening following a meeting between Congress president Sonia Gandhi, AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and Botsa.Though two other ministers -- Ponnala Lakshmaiah from Telangana and Kanna Lakshminarayana from Guntur -- were also in the race for the PCC post, a variety of factors appear to have favoured Botsa. Apparently, the crisis being faced by the Congress in the State and the urgent need to arrest the drift prompted the leadership to weigh numerous considerations.Interestingly, Botsa’s appointment came on the very day Azad admitted that the Kiran Kumar Reddy government is facing “certain difficulties”. Kiran and Botsa Satyanarayana do not enjoy a good rapport and the chief minister was reportedly not in favour of the latter for the PCC chief’s post. Yet, Delhi has chosen to go ahead with Botsa’s candidature. Implied in it is a message that the interests of the party are supreme and everyone has to fall in line. The PCC chief’s position was more or less ornamental when YS Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief minister but in picking Botsa for the post, the Congress has clearly created another power centre in the State. What are the factors that worked for Botsa? Since the chief minister belongs to Rayalaseema and the deputy chief minister is going to be one from Telangana, the PCC post has to go to a coastal leader. Botsa is one of the few leaders likely to be acceptable to partymen from both the regions. His position in favour of division and his proximity to former PCC chief K Keshava Rao, who is leading the T stir of party MPs, is expected to help him handle the delicate statehood issue deftly. Botsa belongs to the BC community (Kapu) and together with Chiranjeevi, the party expects him to ensure that Kapus, who moved towards PRP in the 2009 elections, return to the party-fold. Consolidating the BC vote is crucial given that the party is likely to lose its traditional Reddy vote to Jagan.The party high command is also said to have looked for an aggressive leader, capable of taking on the Opposition, including Jagan, while knitting the various groups in the party. Botsa fits the bill on all these counts.
Comments
0 comment