Hyderabad: N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, former Congress leader and chief minister of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh who quit the party to protest against the state’s bifurcation in 2014, is all set to return to the Congress on 13 July. His plan has been confirmed by senior party leaders, and follows months of negotiations with the high command.
A senior Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) leader, who did not want to be named, said that Reddy will join the party in the presence of Congress president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi. “His name was among the probable ones to return after quitting the party. He was perhaps negotiating to see if he can get any organizational post,” he added.
Reddy’s return to the Congress, however, may not be welcomed by everyone within the party. The TPCC leader said that there will be a section which would have reservations about his joining back as the former chief minister had left the Congress at its most important hour. After he quit in 2014, several other leaders also left, mainly to the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), floated by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, son of former (joint) AP chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and leader of the main opposition.
However, with the Congress being reduced to zero in the 2014 state and assembly elections, primarily due to public sentiment which blamed it for AP’s bifurcation, Reddy’s return comes as a positive for the party in AP, especially after the exodus of its leaders to the YSRCP and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress is also looking to shake off the blame for the state’s division, and hopes to get back some of its seats that it lost in the 2014 polls in the coming 2019 state and assembly elections.
Political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy said that Kiran Kumar Reddy as of now has no other place to go. “The BJP today is a bad word and place to join in AP thanks to the special category status issue. And since other parties are not an option, he has returned to the Congress, where he can say that he had left for a cause. Kiran has done the right thing,” he opined.
Raghavendra Reddy stated that the development will also give the Congress space to say that leaders who deserted it before AP’s bifurcation in 2014 are now returning.