Even as chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Monday boarded a flight to Delhi from Tirupati after attending the ongoing mass contact programme in Chittoor district, Union Defence Minister AK Antony flew down to Hyderabad to meet actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi, triggering a fresh round of political speculation, including the possible merger of his party with the ruling Congress and his joining the government.
The Union minister went straight to the residence of Chiranjeevi at around 5 in the evening along with Pradesh Congress Committee president D Srinivas, making it clear that the visit has a significant political agenda on the cards.
Though Chiranjeevi, who currently has 16 MLAs, has been in touch with the Congress high command ever since he met Sonia Gandhi last year, Antony’s unscheduled visit to the city is viewed as part of a larger strategy to take former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy's son Jagan Mohan Reddy and Congress MLAs supporting him head on.
It is said that the Jagan factor has been causing a lot of embarrassment to the Congress leadership at the Centre, especially after he openly challenged the party by saying he was doing a ‘favour to the former by desisting his loyal MLAs from taking any extreme step.’ Tempers rose high between the Jagan group and the government managers a week ago when the chief minister asked these legislators to quit the party.
Apart from the Jagan issue, the party is also said to have been considering a strategy to counter the possible fallout of Telangana backlash in the event of not acting on the demand for separate statehood in the immediate future.
Chiranjeevi and the Congress leadership had earlier entered into an understanding and the ruling party has already taken advantage of it by roping in the support of Praja Rajyam legislators in Rajya Sabha elections last year.
The proposal to take Praja Rajyam MLAs into the state Cabinet has been doing the rounds for quite sometime now.
