JOIN USFight for deputy CM post takes caste colour in AP
Two of his cabinet colleagues, both from Medak district, are up in arms against each other. One of them even got ready to drop the surname ‘Reddy’ from her name, to be chosen for the post.
It is not just Botsa Satyanarayana and his friends who are giving sleepless nights to the chief minister. Kiran Kumar Reddy is into more trouble now that his plans to install Damodar Raja Narasimha as the deputy chief minister have run into rough weather with another Telangana leader J Geeta Reddy opposing the move.
Geeta, whose name was in the fray for the chief minister’s post a few weeks ago, has now demanded that if anyone has to become deputy chief minister, it is she. “I am much senior to any other candidate and therefore I must be given the position,” she is said to have told Kiran Kumar Reddy.
An unrelenting Geeta Reddy even flew to New Delhi on Friday evening to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi. What Sonia told Geeta is not known but sources indicate that Damodar Raja Narasimha is also pestering Kiran Kumar Reddy to know what happened to his appointment to the No 2 position. So incensed was Narasimha that he initially threatened to boycott the first cabinet meeting of the new government, but later relented.
“A nominee from Telangana region would be appointed as deputy CM,” declared AICC general secretary M Veerappa Moily on November 24, the day he named Kiran Kumar Reddy as the new chief minister. Immediately thereafter, the names of both Narasimha and Geeta started doing rounds. Most were surprised to hear Narasimha’s name because he is seen as a junior leader. What went against Geeta is her surname, ‘Reddy’.
Congress seniors said one can’t have a chief minister and deputy chief minister from the same community. This has raised the hopes of Raja Narasimha who took it for granted that he would be the new deputy CM.
In reality, Geeta is a Mala (Dalit) married to a Reddy. Narasimha is also a Dalit but from the Madiga sub-caste that has traditionally been a foe of the Malas.
In a state where SC categorisation is so volatile an issue that has split communities vertically into Malas Vs Madigas, the deputy CM post has become a bone of contention. The categorisation also has a regional dimension, as Malas form a majority in coastal Andhra and Madigas in Telangana.
In a press conference, the Mala Mahanadu leader Karam Prabhakar, addressing Geetha Reddy as only Geetha, warned the state government not succumb to the pressure tactics of Madigas and select Geetha for the sought-after post.