Bypolls: A Congress Strategy to Target Jagan

jagan mohan reddy loyal mlas, jagan mlas resignations, ap bypolls congress strategy, jagan bypolls, congress ready bypolls, mla jayasudha, mla konda surekha, mla kunja satyavathi, telangana mlas, coastal mlas The fate of 26 MLAs loyal to Y S Jaganmohan Reddy who have resigned in protest over 'witch-hunting' of YSR family by the Congress, is still to be decided by Speaker Nadendla Manohar. Even though the ruling Congress has already started preparing its cadres for the bypolls. Sources said top leaders of north coastal Andhra districts have been sounded by the leadership to identify leaders who can take on Jagan loyalist MLAs in the event of a bypoll.

MLAs Golla Babu Rao (Payakaraopet), Dharmana Krishna Das (Narasannapet) and Korle Bharathi (Tekkali) in Srikakulam district were among the 26 who had quit in protest. The job to identify a suitable candidate for the Payakaraopet assembly constituency has been given to minister P Balaraju and MLC D V Suryanarayana Raju, besides Visakhapatnam DCC president Thota Nagesh, party insiders said. Also, as part of efforts to blunt the Jagan factor in the region, Congress has roped in senior leaders for whirlwind visits to East Godavari district where a majority of Congress MLAs have joined the Jagan bandwagon.

Apart from PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayna, minister Anam Ramnarayana Reddy and Anakapalli MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao have rushed to East Godavari on a two-day visit to meet the district Congress leaders and dissident groups. "The party leadership is using the services of Ramnarayana Reddy, Satyanarayana and Srinivasa Rao to influence the cadres of Reddy and Kapu communities in East Godavari," a source said.

The PCC chief would be meeting the Speaker in a couple of days and submit a representation urging him to disqualify the Jagan loyalist MLAs, except the three from Telangana, as these MLAs (non-Telangana) have also resigned from the party membership. "This clause would help the Speaker in considering their disqualification. If anyone seeks disqualification of the Telangana legislators - Jayasudha, Konda Surekha and Kunju Satyavati - it would put the Speaker in a spot as he has to accept the resignations of all the MLAs who quit in support of separate Telangana. So, the Congress leadership would not seek the resignations of the three Jagan loyalist MLAs from T as they have not resigned from the Congress membership," a source said.