The Congress high command has more or less decided to take soon-to-be wound up Praja Rajyam Party president K Chiranjeevi into the central cabinet in the next month’s expansion of the Manmohan Singh cabinet, reports from New Delhi indicated.
Union health minister and AICC incharge of Andhra affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad met party president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday and discussed the issue of revamping the state Congress and also the merger of the PRP with the Congress.
According to sources, Sonia approved the proposal to take Chiranjeevi into the Central cabinet, while offering a couple of berths for the PRP legislators in the Kiran Kumar Reddy cabinet.
Chiranjeevi is expected to go to New Delhi in a couple of days. His party colleagues C Ramachandraiah and Ghanta Srinivasa Rao have already been camping in Delhi to lobby for the ministerial berths.
The question, however, is whether the Congress can afford to face by-elections in Tirupati in the present circumstances.
If Chiranjeevi is taken into the Central cabinet, he would have to invariably resign from his MLA seat from Tirupati and get elected to Lok Sabha or nominated to Rajya Sabha. But if he resigns, there would be by-elections in Tirupati and at a time when YSR Congress part is going great guns all over the state, particularly in Rayalaseema, the Congress would only be risking to vacate Chiranjeevi’s seat. It will be extremely difficult for the Congress to win the Tirupati seat under these circumstances. Will it take the risk? Wait and see.
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