Mallu siblings eye TPCC chief’s kursi

Hyderabad: The Parliamentarian Mallu Ravi, who won for the second time from Nagarkurnool in the recent Lok Sabha polls, and his younger brother, the Deputy CM of State Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, are both in the race for the PCC president's position, along with scores of others, including a MLC, a former MP, and a former MLA.

According to party sources, with Congress winning all three SC seats from Telangana and the Chief Minister being from the upper caste, this is most likely to work in the favour of a Dalit leader if socio-political equations are taken into account. The MP, who has remained one of the close aides of CM A Revanth Reddy even before he became the PCC chief, continues to nurture ambitions. He is ready to accept the key responsibilities within the party, given decades of his service to the party.

Bhatti, who was one of the top aspirants for the CM's position, had to be content with the Deputy CM's post. To compensate for this, he tried hard to push his wife's candidature for Khammam's MP seat once it was clear that none of the Gandhi family members were ready to contest from the winning segment in this Lok Sabha polls. But the ticket was given to R Raghuram Reddy, who is a relative of Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy. Now that neither of his wishes have turned into reality despite his decades of sacrifices to the party, he is now pushing for his own candidature as the next PCC chief. “Both the brothers, being senior party leaders and representing the Dalit community, are pursuing the matter and using good offices in the AICC for lobbying. Both made their presence felt on Saturday at the party's Delhi meetings. While Ravi is confident of handling the post, as he already served as MP from Nagarkurnool once, his brother is hopeful of balancing both administration and party matters, like Karnataka's D K Shivakumar, who is Deputy CM and also KPCC president” said a party source.

Among the others who are in top party positions in the State are former MP Madhu Yashki Goud, MLC M Mahesh Kumar Goud, and former MLA T Jagga Reddy. While the latter two are PCC working presidents, Madhu Yashi is chairman of the Campaign Committee for PCC. All three have now directed all their efforts towards grabbing the top position.