Congress MLAs in the Jagan Mohan Reddy camp appear to be slowly losing heart. Indications from various sources point to at least a dozen of them more or less deciding not to press for acceptance of their resignations. They are unwilling to fight a bypoll for a variety of reasons including uncertainty of reelection.

As many as 26 Congress MLAs, two from the TDP and one from Praja Rajyam submitted quit in August protesting inclusion of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's name in the FIR filed against Jagan Mohan Reddy by the CBI.

Things turned hot with the agency arresting former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy and simultaneously speeding up probe into Jagan's assets. This is said to have caused jitters for some J campers.

A few of them reportedly poured out their woes to some Congress leaders, the sum of which was that they had been 'misled' into resigning by two close aides of Jagan who created an impression that the Kiran Kumar Reddy government was about to fall.

Their misery was compounded when Jagan himself reportedly said that the resignations had been hasty. 'The legislators had been hoping that the speaker would not act on their resignations. But now that he has begun screening each case, the rebels are mulling ways to get out of the mess they created for themselves,' a Congress leader said.

 

Apparently, the ruling party wants to keep these MLAs on tenterhooks with a blow-hot-blow-cold approach so that they are compelled to do a U-turn. In the first few days after the MLAs resigned, PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana made bold statements that they should be accepted.

For sometime now, he has been quiet; and so are the J campers, who have disappeared from the TV screens lately. For his part, chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy is not keen on securing the return of half-a-dozen to ten legislators whose loyalties are firmly with Jagan.

But he would like to lure back the others who are not gone fully down that road. Significantly, Eluru MLA Alla Nani, one of the J resignees, participated in the public programmes attended by the chief minister during his tour of West Godavari on Tuesday.