Former chief minister of combined Andhra Pradesh Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy is all set to return to the fold of Congress party, which is hoping to see a turn-around in its fortunes at least to some extent before the next assembly elections.
Kiran, who had a meeting with senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member T Subbarami Reddy at his residence on Wednesday, is learnt to have agreed to stage a comeback into the Congress, provided he is given a respectable position and power.
Party sources said Kiran is asking for nothing less than the post of Pradesh Congress Committee president, so that he could face the people with confidence.
Subbarami Reddy asked Kiran to first meet AICC president Rahul Gandhi and discuss the issue. In all probability, the last chief minister of combined AP will be meeting the Congress president in the first week of July.
Subbarami Reddy said the party would get immensely benefitted, if Kiran returned to the Congress.
He said Kiran had the experience of being the chief minister of the combined state for more than two and a half years and hence, he would be feeling at home in the Congress. Reddy hinted that Kiran might play a role at the national level.
Apart from Kiran, the Congress high command is aiming at bringing other seniors like Vundavalli Arun Kumar and G V Harsh Kumar who had gone into exile or become inactive, after the state was bifurcated.
Kiran’s brother Nallari Kishore Kumar Reddy joined the ruling Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh in November last year and there was a talk that Kiran, too, might follow suit.
But, Kiran appears to be preferring the Congress to the TDP to get back into active politics, as he does not want to be a subordinate to Chandrababu Naidu!