Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada

City Congress chief's decision angers Upendra's admirers

Staff Reporter

Refusal to allow birthday function in party office triggers row

VIJAYAWADA: The refusal to host a party to celebrate the birthday of the former Union Minister, P. Upendra, in Andhra Ratna Bhavan has snowballed into a controversy in the City Congress unit.

Trouble began when Youth Congress activists sought permission to celebrate the 70th birthday of Mr. Upendra in Andhra Ratna Bhavan, the city Congress office, in a big way on Thursday. The request was reportedly "declined politely" by the City Congress president, Pyla Sominaidu, on the grounds that only birthdays of "national leaders" should be celebrated in the city office.

The rejection irked admirers of Mr. Upendra and some of them publicly blamed the party's city president for their predicament.

Lending a deaf ear to the charges against him, the city president did not bother to organise the birthday bash in Andhra Ratna Bhavan. He, on the other hand, attended a celebration arranged at Imdad Ghar with Congress leaders like the UDA Chairman, Malladi Vishnu. The Vijayawada East MLA, Vangaveeti Radhakrishna, attended a cake-cutting programme organised by a BC leader, Kolanukonda Sivaji, at the latter's office in Gandhinagar. Others played it safe and attended a cake-cutting programme at the office of the Vijayawada MP, Lagadapati Rajagopal, in the evening.

Mr. Upendra's admirers are angry because Mr. Sominaidu became city president only with the active support of the former Union Minister. "How can anyone say that Mr. Upendra is not a national leader?" asks an ardent supporter.

Mr. Upendra's stature has become a subject of debate in party circles. While his admirers say that Mr. Upendra is a national leader because he was a Union Minister once and an MP several times, his detractors say that he is not in the party when he was a Union Minister and he never held any party post at the national level.

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