Relief for Kiran as dissidents attend Cabinet meet

With dissidence raising its head within hours after allocation of portfolios on Wednesday,the party high command intervened to resolve the issue and had deployed Ahmed Patel,political secretary to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi,and Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to talk to the dissident ministers,party sources said.

The development was taken seriously as it came on the back of the resignation of Kadapa MP Jaganmohan Reddy,late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s son who appeared to have challenged the Congress high command and seen to be leading a group of his loyalists away from the party.

The sources said Patel and Azad spoke to senior minister Botsa Satyanarayana,believed to be leading the dissidents. Botsa reportedly told the AICC leaders that a lot of “injustice” was done to the backward castes in the allocation of portfolios as all the plum departments were handed over to the Reddys only.

Senior ministers A Rama Narayana Reddy and K Jana Reddy were also understood to have tried to mollify the dissatisfied ministers like Satyanarayana on behalf of the Chief Minister. The efforts have paid off as Satyanarayana attended the Cabinet meeting.

Talking to reporters after the Cabinet meeting,Satyanarayana said: “I never said I am unhappy with the portfolio. But the distribution of portfolios,funds allocation and other issues should have a scientific method. Backward classes,who constitute 80 per cent of population,should get proper representation. I told our leadership that some negligence took place on this count.”