Sivasankar's exit a result of Cong's new strategy

This is like a sudden gust of wind that sweeps away the dry leaves in its way. Denied party tickets, old guards like P Sivasankar and several of his contemporaries in the state Congress have suddenly found themselves being swept away. Their influence in allotment of party tickets has also been almost negligible this time round.

Sivasankar's resignation announcement on Monday has come as a surprise to not only Congress cadres but also to the people outside the party politics because of his long and illustrious association with the Congress party.

The rest of them, including Baga Reddy, who is equally senior could not make much of an impact and are either already out of active politics or do not have a strong support base.

But the Congress high command this time round seems to have deliberately made up its mind in denying a Lok Sabha ticket to P Sivasankar, who was once the chairman of the AICC BC cell.

In a state like Andhra Pradesh where the ruling Telugu Desam Party survives mainly on the solid support base of BC communities, the Congress decision could have been a suicidal act had Sivasankar had his own mass base.

Sivasankar belongs to a very influential and comparatively well-off backward community, called Munnuru Kapu. But one thing unique about him is that he never strongly associated himself with his caste though now he has tried to project himself on those lines.

In his heydays, he never identified himself as a leader of the backward community and instead was quite happy basking in the image of a big leader who always competed with other leaders cutting across caste and community lines.

This time round Sivasankar was aspiring for the Nizamabad Parliamentary seat. Nizamabad, a traditional strong hold for the Munnuru Kapu community, was once represented by Sivasankar himself.

But clearly the new blood in the Congress party is in no mood to accommodate the old guards anymore. Munnuru Kapus are in considerable number in Nizamabad, Nalgonda, Adilabad and Hyderabad.

Whatever little damage that is expected from the exit of Sivasankar in terms of caste has already been neutralised by the Congress party as the PCC president D Srinivas himself belong to the same caste and hails from the Nizamabad district.

Interestingly the lone sitting Congress MLA from the twin cities, D Nagender who was denied an Assembly ticket this time was also a Munnuru Kapu.

One of the reasons for the denial of Congress ticket to Sivasankar, as insiders say, has been his alleged meeting with Chandrababu Naidu, the Telugu Desam supremo, coinciding with the recent visit of Sonia Gandhi to Andhra Pradesh.

Congress men allege that Sivasankar and Naidu have already entered into an understanding. One of the reasons behind the denial of party tickets to some of the old timers in Congress party has been attributed to the same allegation.

Leaders like Kodanda Reddy, D Nagender, who were long been branded by their detractors as agents of Naidu in the Congress party were willfully kept aside by the party high command.

"The exit and subsequent outbursts by the people like Sivasankar in the midst of elections will certainly cause embarrassment to the Congress party. But if you see beyond the periphery, the Congress party is greatly relieved of by the burden of these spent forces," a political analyst commented.

The sad exit of Sivasankar also speaks of the failure of his recent efforts to take up the mantle of a BC leader.

He is yet to announce his future plans though some in the Congress party allege that Naidu has assured him either a Rajya Sabha seat or a governorship in the coming days.

Winning first from the Secunderabad Parliamentary constituency in the 1979 by-election, Sivasankar served as union minister in Indira and Rajiv's cabinets beside serving as the governor of Maharashtra, Kerala and Sikkim.

He successfully fought in the 1998 Parliament elections from Tenali seat but lost in the subsequent election.

Baga Reddy, who is known for his loyalty to Indira Gandhi and who in the past had vacated his Medak seat for Indira Gandhi has also joined Sivasankar after he failed to get a ticket for his brother-in-law Kishta Reddy.

One of the other interesting developments on account of ticket allotments and seat adjustments with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is that the Congress leadership has considerably silenced the Telangana voice in its ranks.

Leaders like Govardhan Reddy and Keshava Rao who did not find a place in the list of Assembly candidates this time around were once the most vociferous leaders demanding a separate Telangana state.

These people see a well hatched plan behind giving a huge number of Assembly seats to the TRS by the state Congress leadership.