Congress Eagerly Awaits Jagan's Arrest

The ruling party in the state is eagerly awaiting YS Jagan Mohan Reddy's arrest, which looks imminent in the wake of the ongoing probe in to his assets case by the CBI. Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar is yet to act upon the resignations submitted by 26 Congress MLAs in support of YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy. And the Congress is hoping that arrest of Jagan takes place prior to the Speaker makes his move.

The Congress strategy is that if there is no movement on the resignations issue till the arrest of the YSR Congress chief, some of the 26 MLAs may have second thoughts and withdraw their resignations. "With the CBI going strong on the Jagan assets case with its search and seizure operations, the arrest of the YSR son at this stage would mean he is in for a long haul with regard to the case. With their leader caught in the legalities of the case, which can stretch for months if not years, we are hoping that it would dawn on the Jagan loyalist Congress MLAs that they are backing the wrong horse," said Congress sources.

In sync with the notions of Congress, five of the 26 MLAs who submitted their resignations in support of Jagan are reportedly talking to PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana and requesting him to give them some time to come back to the party fold. They are learnt to have explained to the PCC chief that they will face resistance in their constituencies if they stop backing Jagan and return to the Congress. "They are facing problems in their constituencies. So, we want to give them some more time to shift their loyalities. Given the time, they will be able to persuade their cadre that it is in their best interests to sail with the Congress," said a senior minister.

With regard to the four Congress MLAs who are facing disqualification charges, the Speaker will take a decision after talking to them sometime next week. After that, he would focus on the resignations of TDP rebel MLAs Nagam Janardana Reddy and others who have submitted their resignations on the Telangana issue. "On the whole, it would take another fortnight before the Speaker can take up the case of the resignations of the 26 Congress MLAs," said the sources.

According to sources in the Speaker's office, with regard to those MLAs facing disqualification charges, the Speaker will give them the option of submitting their resignation in lieu of initiating the disqualification process. Given the choice, these MLAs, including Prasanna Kumar Reddy, Bala Nagi Reddy (both from TDP), Srikanth Reddy, Amarnath Reddy, Konda Sureka and Adi Narayana Reddy (from Congress) will prefer to submit their resignations rather than end up being disqualified, the sources added.