The curious case of Kiran Kumar Reddy

23 Aug, 2012 11:28 IST|Sakshi
The curious case of Kiran Kumar Reddy

The Chief Minister, Kiran Kumar Reddy believes that the rising tide of support for the YSRCP is an 'issue' and not a 'problem'.

He is reported to have made this philosophical statement in an interview yesterday.  Of course, he alone can make the distinction between the two. He went a step further and explained the reasons for the YSRCP's success. According to him, most of the leaders who deserted the Congress and won 15 out of the 18 seats they contested in the June elections were leaders of standing for over two decades in their constituencies. Is this something the Chief Minister discovered just today? What has happened to the smugness and that was characteristic of the Congress party's high-voltage campaign that we saw in the June polls. Kiran Kumar Reddy and Botsa Satyanarayana, just to name the two figureheads of the Congress campaign, were brimming with confidence that bordered on complacency right through the run-up to the elections.

The ruling party thought that it could muzzle its way through the elections—by arresting YS Jaganmohan Reddy and keeping him away from the people and the CBI came in as a handy tool for this purpose. Then, they followed it up with a host of central leaders hitting the election trail, including Vayalar Ravi, Pallam Raju, Purandeswari and Ghulam Nabi Azad. Azad is also remembered for his famous faux pas—that YS Jaganmohan Reddy would have been made the Chief Minister or Union Minister had he been 'patient'. He was only articulating what the high command thought, much to the discomfiture of the local leaders. The minute his statement went viral, Azad realized the import of what he had said and tried to wriggle out of the  tricky situation he created by saying that ‘the media had misquoted him’.

When questioned about the involvement of his cabinet ministers in corruption cases, Kiran Kumar Reddy has an even more curious explanation to offer. He said they found themselves in the thick of legal tangles because of Jaganmohan Reddy and added: "it is for him (Jaganmohan Reddy) to explain how these investments have come into his firm ... we will have to legally sort it out".

Can any cabinet minister, leave alone a Chief Minister, claim that he is not responsible for G.Os that are issued in the government's name? The Chief Minister's worthy colleague, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy didn't stop at that—he claimed that cabinet ministers feared the late Chief Minister, YS Rajasekhara Reddy to such an extent and were so much in awe of him that they could not refuse to sign on any file or bring out a G.O. he asked them to! Why don’t our ministers offer this schoolboyish explanation in their affidavits to the High Court or Supreme Court? They will then be taught a lesson in collective responsibility and governance, as YSRCP leaders implied the other day, while reacting to the CM’s statement.

Commonsense tells us that when a G.O. is challenged in any court of law, the Advocate-General mounts a defence on behalf of the government. In this instance, not one, but 26 government orders have been challenged. And what has been the government's response thus far—ostrich-like silence and evasiveness! The government has simply been hoping, as YSRCP leaders Somayajulu and Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy pointed out that the other day that silence would help them tide over the crisis that followed the G.O.s being challenged in court. It became evident to all that the government had implicated YS Jaganmohan Reddy in the disproportionate assets case with a clear ulterior motive, without realizing that the noose could tighten around its own ministers. The Congress chickens have well and truly come home to roost and while they have already paid a heavy price for political vendetta at the hustings, the crisis is now getting precipitated as more ministers are getting sucked into the vortex of CBI charge-sheets.

In statement after befuddling statement, Kiran Reddy and his cabinet colleagues have been trying to defend themselves and in the bargain, have only been tying themselves up in knots. The latest of these is that the political challenge presented by the YSRCP is seen by him as an ‘issue’ and not a ‘problem.’  Reddy like many of our political leaders, notably Botsa Satyanarayana, has clearly not learnt the virtue of silence. Very soon, with the 2014 elections looming large on the political scene, he and many of his party men are likely to discover for themselves whether YSRCP presents a serious challenge to the ruling party in the state and is therefore a ‘problem’ or whether its growing popularity is merely an 'issue' as described by the Chief Minister.

-yesat@sakshipost

 

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