BJP chief warns rebels

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI, JULY 4. The State BJP president, Mr. Ch. Ramachandra Reddy, held out a warning to party rebels contesting the ZPTC and the MPTC elections that they would have to withdraw from the contest in the interest of the party and its official candidates.

Addressing a press conference here today he admitted the problem of rebels in the field and pointed out that the party high command would not hesitate to take stern action against them if they continued to defy the party orders and stayed in the field against the official nominees.

When his attention was drawn to the reported call given by the BJP's Alampur MLA, Mr. Ravula Ravindra Reddy, to the party's rank and file to work for the success of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi candidates, the BJP chief said that he has seen only the press reports on the alleged call but has nonetheless condemned strongly the MLA's belligerent attitude in giving such an open call in violation of the party's official stand. He said not only the MLA under question, no party functionary for that matter should give such irresponsible calls which ran counter to the party's official stance and said that those violating the party orders would be sternly dealt with.

Asked about the failure of talks between the TDP and the BJP on seat sharing for the ensuing elections which eventually led to a "friendly contest" between the two alleys for 160 ZPTC seats spread over 14 districts, the BJP chief described the situation as unfortunate but declined to pinpoint as to who was to blame for the situation. Mr. Reddy did not think that the friendly contest between the BJP and the Cong-I would result in the division of their votes and would ultimately benefit the Cong-I because the party (Cong-I) did not have such a "scene", meaning hype or image to poll all the votes.

He also sought to defend without much conviction the friendly contest between the two allies by saying that the party would like send a new message to other parties that despite differences the two parties are "together". "Cong-I is our common enemy and there is no deviation in our policy on that," he said and predicted that the Cong-I was sure to bite dust in the coming local body elections.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Two hurt in car bomb blast
Next     : Naidu seeks votes on development plank