The Hindu : A be-thorough Governor

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

A be-thorough Governor

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD Jan. 20. He is certainly different. That is what anyone meeting the new Governor, S.S. Barnala, seems to be saying nowadays. Ask Congress MLAs who made a beeline to him on Monday led by their leader, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy!

The "difference'' may prove to be a bit flustering to the visitors if they are not update with the finer details of the subject they would like to broach with the Governor.

Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy found this out, as well as his team members, to their embarrassment, when they met the Governor with a memorandum on Monday. A patient hearing later, the Governor posed a simple question "when was "Velugu'' launched leaving the callers speechless. Whoever thought of it?

Having perused the list of signatories (MLAs), he shot off another query seeking to know whether the party was consisting only of "Reddys'' as 11 out of 17 meeting him were so. This time Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy did not falter and immediately cleared his doubt pointing to the number of MLAs belonging to weaker sections in the party.

Though there was more time to spend with him, he departed soon. The Governor insisted on every MLA meeting him.

The other day the Congress ZP chairpersons' meeting turned out to be a happy encounter with the latter interested in knowing whether the Government had transferred all 29 subjects to the Panchayats as per the provision of the Constitutional amendment of the PR Act. His further probing of the status of PR institutions in AP was a pleasant surprise to the delegation.

``Next time, this will not do. We got to do our homework perfect. Dr. Rangarajan's tenure was different. It was always a brusque, "OK, I shall look into it' or a smile and a pat and a "goodbye.'' "Barnalaji is bound to give one quivers with his pro-active role'' is the surmise of the Congress delegation now.

Beware, if you are meeting him for it might turn out to be a "viva'' test!

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