Jagan wants Sonia to decide CM

Sensing that the Congress high command is irked over the strong campaigns by a section of the party for Y S Jaganmohan Reddy to succeed his father, the followers of late Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today stepped in to salvage the situation.

All the loyalist ministers of YSR, as the former CM was popularly known, took a fresh oath under the new interim Chief Minister K Rosaiah, even as Jaganmohan formally urged his supporters to leave the decision of picking the next CM to party president Sonia Gandhi.

As the YSR followers started mounting pressure, Gandhi today met Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily, who is in charge of Andhra Pradesh, to take stock of the situation. According to sources, Gandhi is not happy with the way YSR loyalists are openly campaigning for Jaganmohan’s appointment, even as the party is trying to ensure there is no political squabble as of now.

A senior Congress leader added that the party was likely to appoint someone from the Reddy community as the next chief minister. But Gandhi has not decided on this issue.

The 37-year-old Jaganmohan today issued a statement, urging his supporters to leave the decision of picking the next CM to the party high command. “Our high command knows, and more particularly our party president Sonia Gandhi respects, the public perception and feelings of thousands of Congress workers and she knows too well what is good for our state and people,” he said after arriving in Hyderabad from Idupulapaya.

Asking the supporters to be patient, he said: “I request you to await the decision of Ms Sonia Gandhi on the issue of leadership and also urge you to abide by the decision.” At the same time, Jaganmohan sounded confident and said his father’s “ideals, mission and zeal would not be compromised in any manner” by the high command’s decision.

In his four-page statement, he also recalled YSR’s strong connections with the Gandhi family. He said Indira, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi had shown “outstanding love and affection” for YSR and he is “grateful to Sonia Gandhi for her immense support and help to my father at all crucial times. She stood like a rock behind my father and supported him wholeheartedly throughout his career.”

Jaganmohan’s statement came after a meeting convened by the state Congress unit in Hyderabad to condole the death of YSR ended in chaos after Jaganmohan’s supporters shouted slogans demanding his installation as the next chief minister.