Minister for Power, Mines & Geology, Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy, has flayed the Indian National Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu for trying to “divide families and disturbing harmonious relations between individuals”.
His observation assumes political significance in the wake of the YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP) founder Y.S. Sharmila, sister of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, merging her political party with the Congress party and getting inducted into the national party at New Delhi.
Speaking to the media after distributing the enhanced pension to beneficiaries at Chittoor on January 4, he said the YSR Congress Party was watching the developments unfolding in the Telugu states as “an interested spectator”.
Perceiving “unethical politics” behind the major development, he accused Ms. Gandhi and Mr. Naidu of disturbing and dividing the YSR family once again. He maintained that the duo had played a role in sending Jagan to jail for sixteen months in the past.
“Anyone joining the Congress or the TDP are our political opponents. Whoever they are, however big they are, we will treat them as rivals of YSR Congress Party”, he said, in a veiled reference to Y.S. Sharmila getting into the Congress fold.
The Rayalaseema strongman, while pledging the avowed support of the legislators to Jagan Mohan Reddy in the ensuing general elections, exuded confidence that the beneficiaries of the scores of social security schemes would certainly back him at the hustings and ensure his victory.
