Reddy taunts Hariprasad over remarks

Senior Congress leader and Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy taunted AICC general secretary B K Hariprasad by asking why the Congress failed to do well in the Lok Sabha elections in states where he (Hariprasad) was in charge. 

Reddy was reacting to a recent suggestion by Hariprasad that district in- charge ministers who could not get leads for Congress candidates in the parliamentary polls should take moral responsibility and resign. Hariprasad, Rajya Sabha member, is in charge of party affairs in Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. 

Without naming Hariprasad, Reddy wondered: “In his home turf (Malleswaram), Congress candidate B K Shivaram lost by a margin of 50,000 votes in the last Assembly polls. Candidates who were given tickets at his behest lost miserably. It is the chief minister’s prerogative to drop or induct ministers.

 If the chief minister asks me to resign taking moral responsibility, I will do so immediately. I never went after power. If I get an opportunity, I will work or else will go home,” Reddy said sardonically. 

Reddy is the district in- charge minister of Bangalore (Urban). Congress lost all three Lok Sabha seats in the district. He went on: “As suggested by him (Hariprasad), if all 18 ministers resign, then there would be hardly any ministers left in the Cabinet. If MLAs resign owning moral responsibility, then there would be no government.”