Congress Crisis Deepens: Seniors defy Kharge fiat, to skip camp

Hyderabad: The crisis in the Telangana Congress seems to be getting deepened as the group of seniors who had recently revolted against the state president have decided not to attend the party training camp at Hyderabad despite telephonic instructions from AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge.

Kharge who wanted to resolve the crisis within the TPCC to avoid any damage to the party particularly during the election year called the former TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and asked the seniors to attend the training camp.

But it is learnt that the seniors have decided to boycott the meeting alleging that the response from the TPCC president's side was not conducive. They say that following the intervention of the senior AICC leader Digvijay Singh, they had relented from their earlier decision to submit a memorandum to the AICC on how they were being sidelined and those who migrated to the Congress from the TDP along with Revanth Reddy were being given greater importance.

In the backdrop of this scenario, Kharge urged the seniors to attend the training camp.

But seniors say that they would not attend the camp since there is no indication that things would improve in the party. They allege that Revanth Reddy continues to take unilateral decisions and was even overstepping the directions of the party high command.

According to senior party leader Maheshwar Reddy, the party high command had asked all PCCs to take up two-month padayatra as a follow-up of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra but Revanth Reddy, without consulting anyone, had announced that he would go on five-month padayatra. This announcement does not have the approval of the AICC, he remarked.

When the TPCC president is not willing to discuss and take all sections along with him, the seniors feel there was no point in attending the training camp which would begin from Wednesday.