The BJP Telangana unit sought to know whether it is Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy administering the State or the Congress party’s high command, going by the manner in which the former is being summoned to New Delhi often for discussions on expanding the Cabinet and for choosing a new party chief.
BJP Telangana vice-president and former MLA N.V.S.S. Prabhakar told a press conference at the State office here on Thursday that the Congress high command has a history of “humiliating” chief ministers of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh by trying to control them and the same method is being continued now with Mr. Revanth Reddy being “prevented” from taking independent decisions.
“The party high command has been successful in tying him (Chief Minister) up and forcing him to retract certain decisions. The high command representative Deepa Das Munishi has become an extra-constitutional authority and is wielding more influence than the Chief Minister, and as a result the law and order here has been found wanting with increasing number of murders and crime,” he charged.
The BJP leader said the ruling party, which swears by the Constitution, has been “insulting” the same by preventing the Chief Minister from exercising his powers given by it to expand the Cabinet since many important portfolios continue to remain with him. “This is clearly affecting the administration as Mr. Revanth Reddy lacks freedom to take his own decisions,” he claimed.
The government’s administration is like “one step forward and three steps back” in the last six months with different sections of the society including the farming community looking up for support. Mr. Prabhakar welcomed the proposed talks with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to discuss the contentious bifurcation issues and wondered if the Congress high command will allow the programme to happen.