The bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh seems to have broken the back of the Congress party in Krishna district. From over a dozen MLAs in 2004 the number of party legislators fell to half a dozen in 2009 with the Telugu Desam grabbing four seats and the Praja Rajyam Party grabbing two more.
The number of Assembly constituencies in the district was also reduced by one due to delimitation. The formation of the YSR Congress Party saw further erosion in Congress party ranks with Pedana MLA Jogi Ramesh and Machilipatnam Perni Venkataramaiah joining it. But, with the merger of the PRP with the Congress the number of MLAs was restored when Vijayawada East MLA Yalamanchili Ravi and Vijayawada West MLA Vellampalli Srinivas joined Congress ranks. After the bifurcation only Pamarru MLA D.Y.Das has been saying that he would continue with the Congress party.
ConsultationsMinister K. Parthasarathi and the three MLAs from Vijayawada city – Malladi Vishnu, Mr. Ravi and Mr. Srinivas – were with former Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy at the press conference he held just before submitting his resignation to register his protest against the passing of the Andhra Pradesh Re-Organisation Bill in the Lok Sabha.
While the Congress legislators have not openly announced their plans, the fact that they have been holding consultations with their followers and sympathisers about various avenues open to them is known to all.
Followers of the Ministers said that they wanted him to join the new party that would be started by the former Chief Minister.
If no new party was formed then the Minister was free to choose whether he wanted to join the TDP of the YSR Congress, as both the parties have extended invitations to him.
The followers of Mr. Vishnu and Mr. Srinivas say they still have open invitations from the YSRCP.
Mr. Ravi on the other hand had an invitation from the Telugu Desam Party with which he had an association in the past.
Not just the elected representatives, other leaders in the Congress party have also been plunged into a state of dilemma.
Andhra Pradesh Official Language Commission chairman Mandali Buddha Prasad a second generation Congress leader is also keeping his distance from the Congress. Former MLA Mudraboiba Venkateswara Rao has resigned from the party.
Followers of former Minister Devineni Rajasekhar say that their leader would not leave the Congress and that his son Avinash was aspiring for a ticket to contest from Vijayawada Parliamentary constituency which was without a candidate in the wake of Lagadapati Rajagopal taking a sabbatical from politics.
