The ongoing travails of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Janardhana Reddy received a caste twist recently, when the Congress(I) high command dispatched a central team to Andhra Pradesh to assess the dissidents' demands for his ouster.Consisting of three Brahmin leaders - Jitendra Prasad, Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi and Motilal Vora - the team instantly met with a charge of Brahminical bias. So vociferously did a section of the AICC(I) -- comprising state rebels as well as Janardhan Poojary complain -- about a single-caste team that a fourth member, Pratibha Patil, a Rajput, had to be sent off to join the team.But by the time she reached the city, the team had finished its work. Basically, she was used in the most banal fashion, as a mere symbol, and expected to affix her signature to a report prepared on the basis of evidence gathered in her absence. In any case, the caste hiccup is certainly unlikely to save the skin of Reddy who seems to have the odds stacked against him quite firmly.For one, party chief P.V. Narasimha Rao has of late not been too happy with Reddy, although their association dates back to many decades ago. Secondly, dissidents, who are apparently being aided by Rao's nephew, Rajeshwara Rao, refuse to accept Reddy even if he proves his majority in the state legislature party. "After all corruption cannot be justified by a majority," the dissidents led by Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy, MP, told the visiting team. The team seems to have bought this line of argument. Now to see if the party president will.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Dec 31, 2012 13:23 IST--- ENDS ---
