Veteran Congress leader and former minister K Jana Reddy today reminded the party's leaders and cadres to exercise restraint while posting content on social media.
Pointing out that the social media posts of the party leaders' followers, which showed them supporting their "favourite" leaders and criticising other Congress' leaders, would only harm the party, he said, "While posts reeking of sycophancy are not desirable, neither are posts that deride and criticise other leaders. Both have the potential to damage the image of the Congress. I would urge you to be careful while publishing any posts on social media, therefore."
Although his reminder seems perfectly innocent, many believe it is actually a veiled attack on fellow Congress leader and MP A Revanth Reddy - while Jana Reddy did not take any names, he did say that the "followers of a group of leaders" of the Congress had been making disparaging remarks about other party leaders on social media.
(This attack on Revanth Reddy comes after senior Congress leader V Hanumantha Rao recently
filed a police complaint against unidentified people who were making "abusive" and "threatening" phone calls to him, and were targeting him on social media. Rao had claimed that Revanth Reddy's followers were behind the calls and the social media posts.)
He advised such leaders to bring up their issues with their colleagues in forums within the party, instead of expressing their dislike on public social media platforms.
The veteran leader also appealed to the party's high command to take strict action against any party members publishing "irresponsible" content on social media and demanded that a "restraining policy" be implemented in this regard for all the members, irrespective of their positions.
"The party's top brass must take a strong stand on the issue. The TPCC should devise ways to ensure that the party's members and supporters do not put up objectionable social media posts," he said.
After addressing the issue of irresponsible social media use, Reddy lambasted the ruling party, the TRS, for spreading "lies" about the Congress. He claimed that, unlike what the TRS was saying, the Congress had given jobs to more than 4 lakh people when it was in power in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
He also faulted the TRS government for making "false promises" to the graduates, the employees, and the youth of Telangana, and for not introducing an unemployment dole in the state despite having been in power for six-and-a-half years.
(Jana Reddy's words resemble
the advice that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had given to the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and corporators of the GHMC shortly after they were elected. He had asked the GHMC officials not to indulge in "unnecessary and irrelevant talk", and had advised them to "speak carefully". Unfortunately, however, just some days later, Mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi had kicked up quite a storm with her
comments about rain in the state capital.)