Hyderabad : In a first in the country, chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy has taken oath again as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. The move was necessitated as the cricketer-turned-politician was increasingly feeling as if he was not the CM of the state. There has been unrest in the Telangana region for the last 14 days, with different sections of employees going on strike demanding a separate Telangana and just about every Congressman defying the diktat of the CM.
However, no MLA could take the oath of office with him, as all of them were struck in different rail roko, rasta roko, bus roko agitations, preventing them from reaching Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad on time. Governor ESL Narasimhan waited for some time but gave up as it was getting late for him to visit the temple at 11:06 am. Kiran has now decided he will be a one-man government, since the only work most of his earlier ministers did was to hand in their resignations.
The only person who managed to rush to Hyderabad on time was interestingly, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy. He suspended his Odarpu Yatra in Krishna district when he heard an oath-taking ceremony was to take place at Raj Bhavan. But he left for Vijayawada as soon as he heard Kiran had only bowled a doosra.
Talking to mediapersons at Raj Bhavan, the chief minister said the day he had to enter the Secretariat through the back gate because of striking employees at the entry gate, he decided he must get back to his job with new zest and vigour.
“In cricket, we call it follow-on. I admit I have not played the first innings well but I will bat well now to avoid an innings defeat,” said Kiran, drawing a cricket analogy.
Retorting in the same cricketing lingo, Telangana activists said the wicket is showing signs of wear and tear and Kiran cannot negotiate the cracks on the pitch, when spinners will have a field day.
Meanwhile, in off-field action, bookies from Delhi are trying their best to indulge in both spot-fixing and match-fixing to ensure the game ends in a draw. “I wish this agitation was taking place in the monsoon. Then we could have applied the Duckworth-Lewis method or even better, called off the match,” said a political analyst.
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