Letter to Sonia puts Botsa in tough spot

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A letter seeking the removal of Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy for allegedly being ineffective and PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana for reportedly running a ‘liquor and mining mafia’ has created a furore.

The letter, allegedly written by Union tribal welfare minister Kishore Chandra Deo to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, was published in a Delhi-based newspaper on Monday.

Terming the issue as a conspiracy to malign him, Mr Satyanarayana has threatened to sue the daily.

Mr Deo said that he had not written any such letter in the last four months but indicated that he would write to the Congress president regarding the state of affairs of the party.

AICC spokesperson Sandeep Dikshit said on Monday evening that the party was not thinking about a change of leadership in the state.

The Hindustan Times report, which appeared on Monday, stated that Deo had written to the Congress leadership seeking the removal of both the Chief Minister and the PCC president.

The report said that Deo had alleged Satyanarayana’s involvement in corruption and said “it will be difficult to find a worse person for this post than the present incumbent”.

Referring to Kiran Kumar Reddy, the report quoted the letter as saying: “He does not command any respect from his colleagues and is not able to motivate bureaucracy and the government machinery to work and he also suffers from an inferiority complex.”