Fissures surface in Congress after Telangana panchayat polls

Differences have emerged within the Telangana Congress after the panchayat election results, with TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud and AICC in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan reportedly expressing dissatisfaction over the party’s performance and proposed appointments, exposing growing internal fault lines

Hyderabad: After the panchayat election results and amid the exercise to fill TPCC working presidents’ posts, fissures have surfaced between TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud, AICC in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.

Though the Chief Minister boasted about the Congress party-backed candidates’ victory in the elections, the TPCC president and AICC in-charge are learnt to have expressed their unhappiness over the results.

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The duo held a conference with MLAs and senior leaders on Friday, during which they analysed the party’s performance in a few constituencies and ascertained the reasons for setbacks. Both the leaders reportedly pulled up some MLAs for failing to ensure a truce between party-backed candidates and rebel candidates. They also took strong objection to several MLAs fielding their family members and close relatives against the recommendations of party workers. Significantly, Revanth Reddy did not attend the review meeting.

While this is one side of the coin, the other is that the TPCC president and AICC in-charge are also not convinced by the Chief Minister’s claims about the party’s performance.

“That is the reason TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud did not attend the press conference conducted by the Chief Minister at his residence,” a senior leader pointed out. There also appears to be a difference of opinion over the names being proposed for TPCC working presidents’ posts. There is a buzz in Gandhi Bhavan that the Chief Minister’s close aides Rohin Reddy and former MLA Sampath Kumar are front runners for the posts representing OC and SC categories respectively. Similarly, the names of Balram Naik from ST category and Saritha Thirupathaiah from BC category are doing the rounds.

“However, the party leadership is not keen on a few names being referred for the posts,” the senior leader stressed.

Interestingly, the TPCC president and the AICC in-charge staged a protest at the BJP office in Nampally on Thursday over alleged fake cases being booked against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and party MP Rahul Gandhi. The TPCC president also staged a demonstration on Mahatma Gandhi Road in Secunderabad on Saturday in protest against the Central government’s decision to rename the MGNREGA scheme as VB GRAM G. Revanth Reddy did not turn up for these events, even as his Cabinet colleagues D Sridhar Babu, Jupally Krishna Rao, V Srihari and Mohammed Azharuddin participated, raising many eyebrows in Gandhi Bhavan.

It may be recalled that after the destruction of forest lands in Kancha Gachibowli in April this year, Meenakshi Natarajan held a meeting with a few Ministers in the Secretariat. She later met University of Hyderabad students and staff and held discussions with them over the issue.

These meetings did not go down well with a section of leaders in Telangana Congress.