Rededication Day Blues Pester Congress

The tradition of conducting Rededication Day by ruling Congress party in Andhra Pradesh has started from the year 2004. The party generally holds a massive rededication programme with great fanfare in LB Stadium in Hyderabad on May 14 (or some other day in the week) as it was on that day that the Congress formed the government under chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy for the first time in 2004.

The original idea of holding a Rededication Day was to get a feedback on programmes like free power, pensions and Jalayagnam, among others, from the grassroot level and seek constructive suggestions from them. When YSR was alive, May 14 was a great occasion for party leaders all over the state. Rededication Day was celebrated without any break for years. Now the situation has changed in the state. The state Congress seems to be a divided house on many counts. Incidentally, May 14 this year comes a day after the results for Kadapa bypolls are out.

"Inside the party, nobody knows who is with Jagan and who is not. The Congress is not able to act against the party MLAs who are holding press conferences from the YSR Congress office. Any public meeting in this backdrop will spell disaster," feel the senior leaders. Last year, though D Srinivas had announced holding Rededication Day, it had to be cancelled due to a natural calamity in the state's coast. This year, though the second week of May is just a day away, there is no talk of observing it. Seems in all probability, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC president D Srinivas are all set to skip holding Rededication Day this year too!