The Hindu : Front Page : Telangana leader preferred

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Friday, Nov 23, 2007
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Telangana leader preferred

Special Correspondent

The next PCC chief should belong to weaker sections, Veerappa Moily told

PHOTO: Satish. H

CONSULTATIONS: AICC general secretary Veerappa Moily in Hyderabad on Thursday.

HYDERABAD: A majority of senior Congress leaders urged the party high command on Thursday to appoint as APCC president a person who can effectively serve as a bridge between the organisation and the Government in view of the fact that Assembly elections are just 15 months away.

At the same time, they insisted with AICC general secretary M. Veerappa Moily that the next party chief should be from Telangana and belong to the weaker sections. Mr. Moily, who was here on Thursday to attend a wedding, spent considerable time eliciting the views of party leaders on finding a successor to the APCC in-charge president G. S. Rao as also on the demand for a separate Telangana State.

Among the names that figure in the list of probables to head the party are Mallu Ravi, Special Representative of AP Government in New Delhi, V. Hanumantha Rao, Nandi Yellaiah, both Rajya Sabha members, and Major Irrigation Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah.

Speaking to reporters later, the AICC leader said that the consultations for identifying the next PCC chief was almost complete and the successor would be named either in the first week or second week of December. “Nobody is under the high command’s consideration and the successor will be chosen on basis of consultations,” he noted.

He appealed to the Congress leaders not to air views on Telangana publicly as the matter was referred to the AICC chief Sonia Gandhi. “By making controversial statements, the issue will be complicated,” he said and added that the Pranab Mukherjee committee was still working on evolving a consensus on the issue.

Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Speaker K.R. Suresh Reddy, Finance Minister K. Rosaiah, Mr. Lakshmaiah, former Minister M. Satyanarayana Rao, P. Janardhan Reddy and M. Sashidhar Reddy, MLAs, were among others who called on him. APCC spokesman Paladugu Venkat Rao and Shadnagar MLA P.Shankar Rao sprang a surprise by asking the party to consider their names for the party president’s post.

The Assembly Speaker is learnt to have told Mr. Moily that though the people were impressed with the development, there was a strong ‘Telangana sentiment’ prevailing among the youth and employees of the region.

No excuses

At a meeting at Gandhi Bhavan later, Mr. Moily warned that AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi made it clear that performance of the partymen would be linked to ‘merit of action’ and that there would be no excuses for those who did not perform.

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