In yet another veiled warning to rebel Congress MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Law Minister M Veerappa Moily today asserted that the party is “capable of managing its domestic affairs” in Andhra Pradesh.
“I don’t want to comment on this. It is our (Congress) domestic affair and we are capable of managing it. There is no threat to the Congress government headed by Chief Minister K Rosaiah and it is running well,” Mr. Moily, in-charge of Congress affairs in Andhra Pradesh, told reporters when asked what bearing Mr. Jagan’s planned September 3 yatra would have on the party.
Mr. Moily denied having set a September 2 deadline to announce the party decision on Mr. Jagan, if he went ahead with his yatra. “I have not set any date. It is the media which did it.”
However to a query on what Congress would do to reign in Mr. Jagan, he had stated, “I will not say anything till September two“.
Mr. Jagan, son of former Chief Minister late Y S R Reddy, plans to address a public meeting at Tirupati on September 2, the first death anniversary of his father. The next day, he is expected to launch the yatra in Prakasam district.
Mr. Moily rejected BJP’s allegations that the Centre was using CBI in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case against its government in Gujarat.
“The Congress or the Government is not interfering in CBI investigations. It is on a Supreme Court directive that CBI is probing the case.If the Gujarat Government has any grievance, it should approach the Supreme Court”, he said.
He declined to react to allegation of Geetha Johri, one of the witnesses in the case that she was being pressurised by CBI to take the names of some political leaders.
Mr. Moily disapproved of the agitational path chosen by the BJP government in Karnataka to seek Presidential assent for the anti-cow slaughter bill and suggested it ‘adopt constitutional methods“.
He also declined to comment on the Shiv Sena demand for his ouster from the ministry, charging him with taking a pro-Karnataka stand on the Karnataka-Maharashtra boundary dispute.
“If Shiv Sena takes pleasure in such demands, I have nothing to say”, he said to the Sena charge that he had a role in the contents of the affidavit filed by the Centre before the apex court on the dispute, seeking transfer of 856 villages of Karnataka to it.
