MLAs belonging to the Praja Rajyam Party intend to take their budding relationship with the Congress a step deeper by sharing power with the Congress in the Rosaiah Cabinet. The MLAs are aiming for at least four berths and are going to exert pressure on Mr Chiranjeevi to agree to a merger.
Indications of a possible alliance between the Praja Rajyam and the Congress surfaced during party chief Chiranjeevi’s Delhi visit on Saturday. Mr Chiranjeevi met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and struck a deal on Rajya Sabha polls.
“When our party chief has announced that the Congress and PRP are similar in their secular outlook and welfare agenda, there is no point in maintaining an independent posture any more. It would be better if we have some power-sharing arrangement and are happy for the coming four years,” said a PRP legislator. He conceded that before the 2014 Assembly elections the Praja Rajyam will be forced to merge with the Congress, so it would be better to join the Rosaiah ministry now. “We are already being branded as Congress MLAs in the districts, so why not share power with the Congress and do some good work for people?” another PRP legislator from East Godavari district told this correspondent.
It is not known whether Mr Chiranjeevi is interested in joining the Cabinet. He had declined Congress support when the Praja Rajyam proposed to contest the Rajya Sabha polls. There was a proposal from the Congress for a merger before the Rajya Sabha polls, but he preferred a working arrangement.
Though the Congress got a two-thirds majority in the Assembly polls in 2004, the Congress high command had ordered Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy to include in his Cabinet six MLAs from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which got 26 seats in an alliance with the Congress. YSR reluctantly did so. All the six ministers resigned a year later.
Now things have changed. The chief minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, favours a tieup with the PRP and has no objection to its entry into his Cabinet. After all, the much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle has still not taken place, leaving room for much manoeuvring.