Date:02/05/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/05/02/stories/2004050211240500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

CLP leadership: call to end bickering

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, MAY 1. Four senior Congress leaders-- M. Baga Reddy, Palvai Govardhan Reddy, R. Surender Reddy and M. A. Aziz-- on Saturday appealed to party men not to raise the issue of the leadership of the Congress Legislature Party till the election process was completed and results were declared.

Addressing a press conference, they said it was `unfortunate to see internal bickering' among Congressmen over the post of the Chief Minister at a time when the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, was striving hard to defeat the casteist and communal forces and bring back secular Governments at the Centre and in the State. Such party men should understand that there were three more phases of polls to go and they should avoid taking "such issues to the bazaar".

They said the party would maintain its `democratic tradition' of seeking the opinion of the newly elected MLAs and convey the same to the AICC president and she would pick the leader.

"It is a known fact that the Chief Minister will be elected by the MLAs and the party president and hence it is not right on the part of he senior leaders to create confusion in the minds of the common man. This can severely impede the election process elsewhere."

Quizzed about the senior leader, G. Venkatswamy's appeal that a leader from Telangana should be chosen as leader of the Congress Legislature Party, they agreed that sentiments of such a senior leader should be respected but it was better to leave such things to the party high command.

They did not anticipate any change in situation in Telangana if a leader from the region was chosen as Chief Minister, as was seen on the previous occasions.

And but for the Congress Legislature Party and Mr. Gandhi, no other committee, not even PC,C had a role in deciding upon the new leader.

Unlike the BJP, where the tussle for the Prime Ministership was between Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, the Congress had no such problem. Even the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, Sharad Pawar, had now accepted the leadership of Ms. Gandhi.