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Congress MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy with AICC president Mllikarjun Kharge. (X)
A former Air Force pilot, Congress MP from Nalgonda N Uttam Kumar Reddy is seeking decoy flares to counter homing rumours, saying that he has been casting furtive glances at the BRS.
Rumours that Uttam Kumar might defect to the BRS were so strong that the apparently rattled MP was forced to issue a statement refuting them.
He expressed suspicion that a top state Congress leader, who wanted to see him ejected from the party, was behind the campaign. The former pilot, however, stated that he would not abandon the Congress.
Putting up a gallant facade, he recalled his chivalrous acts as an Air Force pilot to drive home the point that he would face everything head-on without flying under the radar unidentified like his detractors.
He said a few YouTube channels and media houses, which enjoy the patronage of the Congress leader, were spreading the canards. He condemned the “baseless and false stories” and asserted that he would address the issues at the appropriate level in the party.
Uttam Kumar also denied meeting Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in person except in the Assembly or at public events.
When in-party squabbles rocked the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee in December last, the entire band of party seniors gave a call to Save Congress from its state president A Revanth Reddy.
They made several insinuations against the TPCC president, blaming him for the abusive material that often appeared on social media platforms against them, portraying them as the scum of society.
It was then that Uttam Kumar made a shocking discovery. Fed up with the abusive content on social media against him, he complained to the police.
He later claimed that the police had told him that inquiries led them to the office of Prashanth Jayala, the chairman of the social media department of the Telangana Pradesh Youth Congress. The party later suspended him.
After the Congress veteran warhorse Digvijay Sangh intervened and accommodated some of the demands of seniors like easing out Manickam Tagore as the Telangana in-charge, it appeared the dust was settling.
But the two groups continue to be struggling in the jet wash of each other as Revanth’s detractors like the Komatireddy brothers, resorting to indiscriminate firing against him.
Though Uttam Kumar refrained from making any allegations directly, he dropped subtle hints to point at the troublemaker in the party.
However, he could not be blamed for feeling exasperated like a lone pilot in an obsolete flying coffin — the MiG-21 he is familiar with — holding against a stealth formation.
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