Andhra Pradesh factor had role in Congress move

CONGRESS LEADERSHIP WAS UNDER PRESSURE FROM ITS STATE UNIT TO GIVE THE NOTICE FOR THE NOCONFIDENCE MOTION ON TUESDAY

NEW DELHI: Days after the YSR Congress Party gave a notice to move a no-confidence motion against the Bjp-led NDA government, the Congress decided to follow suit.

A senior Congress leader said on Monday the move was a bid to avoid being outsmarted in Andhra Pradesh’s competitive politics.

The leader said the central leadership was under pressure from its Andhra Pradesh unit to give the notice and not leave the field open for the YSR Congress Party and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in the “theatre of politics” that is being played out in the southern state.

The matter also came up for discussion during a meeting of the Congress MPS on Friday after which the party decided to submit its notice for Tuesday.

Having ruled united Andhra Pradesh for ten years from 2004, the Congress has been relegated to political margins after Telangana was carved out in 2014.

The party, which failed to win a single seat in the assembly and the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, has since ceded political space to the YSR Congress Party, headed by YS Jaganmohan Reddy, son of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and late Congress stalwart YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

While both the YSR Congress Party and the TDP gave notices against the government for its “failure to honour the promise” of granting special category status to Andhra Pradesh, the Congress did not specify a reason. The main opposition party has issued a three-line whip to all its Lok Sabha members to be present on Tuesday. The motion will be moved by Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who is reaching out to other opposition parties to garner support.

Another Congress strategist, however, was of the view that the BJP was “provoking” the AIADMK and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) members to create a ruckus in the Lok Sabha and ensure that the motion is not taken up.

“PM Narendra Modi wants to go down in the history as somebody whose government faced no such motion during its tenure,” said the leader. In a game of one-upmanship, the YSR Congress Party has now announced that its MPS will resign whenever the budget session of Parliament is adjourned sine die. The assessment within the party is that the session could be cut short.