Senior Congress leader and parliamentarian V Hanumantha Rao, who launched Mouna Deeksha at the PCC headquarters here on Saturday morning demanding holding of a brainstorming session of the party, called off his protest after four hours.
As the AICC secretary sat on his deeksha, deputy chief minister Damodar Rajanarsimha called on him and promised him that he would persuade the party leadership to convene a session as demanded by him to discuss threadbare the reasons for the party’s defeat. Heeding his pleading, one of the senior-most leaders of the party ended his protest. During the four-hour protest period, Rao communicated with pary leaders only in writing.
As announced by him on Friday, Rao sat on the deeksha along with his followers in front of the doorway of Gandhi Bhavan at 10.30 am. As the news spread, several Congress leaders and workers began trickling into Gandhi Bhavan. At one point of time Rao became a rallying point for the detractors of chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy in the party. Health minister DL Ravindra Reddy, and senior leaders K Kesava Rao and KR Amos were the prominent critics of Kiran Kumar Reddy who visited the deeksha venue and expressed their solidarity with Hanumantha Rao.
Ravindra Reddy and Kesava Rao told reporters that they were totally backing the demand of Hanumantha Ro for an urgent brainstorming session.
PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana called up the chief minister who was touring Srikakulam district as part of Indiramma Bata and briefed him about VHR’s protest.
Then the PCC chief requested the deputy chief minister to go to Gandhi Bhavan and persuade Hanumantha Rao to end the protest. Around 2 pm Rajanarsimha went to Gandhi Bhavan and persuaded Rao to end his protest, promising him that he would convince the party high command in the capacity of deputy chief minister and member of the party state co-ordination committee to hold a brainstorming session at the earliest. Rao relented and ended his protest by drinking the lemon juice offered by the deputy chief minister.
Later, Rao addressed the party workers at Gandhi Bhavan. Taking potshots at the chief minister, the MP said Kiran Kumar Reddy was announcing new schemes on his own without taking the party leaders and workers into confidence.
“Even Pranab Mukherjee, when he was finance minister, used to take the opinions of party leaders before formulating the central budget. But our chief minister does not discuss new schemes with party leaders and workers and announces the schemes before the public directly. How can the party cadre propagate those schemes?” Rao asked.
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