Turning around Andhra, a big challenge for Chandy
Thiruvananthapuram, June 14: Even as his former close associates P.J. Kurien and V.M. Sudheeran have gone hammer and tongs against him, former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's biggest worry now is how to revive the fortunes of his party in Andhra Pradesh as he gets ready to visit every nook and corner of the state, with the message that the good old Congress party is back.
Chandy, on Wednesday night, returned from his first visit to Andhra after taking over as the General Secretary in charge of that state.
In a chat with here, he dismissed the recent attacks by his former close associates with a smile and said things are tough in Andhra Pradesh but he has taken it as the biggest challenge of his political career.
"I spent the past two days interacting with the top and middle level leadership of the party there in groups and individually. Even though language is a slight problem, I managed it and now I will be there practically every week for a day or two as I have been given the permission to stay away from Delhi to stay put in Andhra by my president Rahul Gandhi," said Chandy.
The challenge before Chandy at present is that the Congress has just a two per cent vote share there and the two leading parties -- the ruling party, Telugu Desam Party and the principal opposition party, YSR Congress party, do not have the best of relations with the Congress party.
Keeping his cards close to his chest, the master tactician who has seen it all in his five decades of political play in Kerala, said in Andhra Pradesh, the 'Congress' party is very much there, but it is with YSR.
"I am now waiting to hear from Gandhi, who has agreed to come over to Andhra Pradesh very soon. And once he is there, I have decided to travel to every nook and corner with the message that the Congress party is back. I am hopeful of winning back the hearts of the people, who always had a soft corner for the Congress party," he said.
Meanwhile, Kurien and Sudheeran have kept up their attack on Chandy.
The duo feels that Chandy was responsible for gifting a Rajya Sabha seat to get veteran K.M. Mani, who heads the Kerala Congress (Mani), back into the Congress-led UDF.
Since then, Kurien has been fretting and fuming as he was all set to get a fourth successive term in the Upper House. So has Sudheeran, who said Chandy never cooperated with him when he was the state party president for two years starting from 2015.
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Rickelton's ton in vain as SRH beat MI by 6 wickets
Mumbai (PTI): Ryan Rickelton's whirlwind unbeaten ton was overshadowed by Heinrich Klaasen's unbeaten 65 as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Mumbai Indians by six wickets in an IPL match here on Wednesday.
Chasing an imposing 244-run target, Travis Head (76 off 30) and Abhishek Sharma (45 off 24) shared 129 runs for the opening wicket to set the platform for SRH.
Klaasen (65 not out off 30 balls) then displayed his all-round hitting abilities to guide SRH home with the help of Nitish Kumar Reddy (21) and Salil Arora (30 not out off 10) in 18.4 overs.
Earlier, Rickelton's knock powered MI to 243 for five.
MI rode on a 93-run stand between Rickelton (123 not out off 55 balls) and Will Jacks (46 off 22) in 7.1 overs for the opening stand to power the side.
MI skipper Hardik Pandya scored a valuable 31 off 15 balls before being dismissed.
Praful Hinge (2/54), Eshan Malinga (1/29), Sakib Hasan (1/39) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (1/31) were the wicket-takers for SRH.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai Indian: 243 for 5 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 123 not out; Praful Hinge 2/54).
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 249 for 4 in 18.4 overs (Travis Head 76, Heinrich Klaasen 65 not out; AM Ghazanfar 2/51).
