Congress senior leader and Rajya Sabha member V Hanumantha Rao has alleged that only feuding in the party led to the defeat of his party’s candidates in the recent by-elections.

Speaking to media persons at his residence here on Sunday, Rao said that it was the Congress leaders, who had defeated the party’s candidates. He said that people had no understanding of the programs of the government as leaders were not frequently moving about amidst people.

The three-time Rajya Sabha member demanded that the Congress party should apologize to the people for the irregularities that occurred during the rule of late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and return the lands acquired from the poor for setting up SEZs and other industrial units.

Referring to the landslide win of the YSR Congress party in the recent by-polls, Hanumantha Rao said that party’s honorary president Vijayamma shed tears at every election meeting and urged the people with folded hands to vote for her party. Her tricks worked and generated sympathy for Jaganmohan Reddy. He also hastened to add that he would retire from active politics if that party (YSRC) wins future elections on the so-called sympathy wave.

Exhorting the Congress cadre not to get disheartened by the recent poll reverses, Rao advised the YSRCP leaders to apologise to the people for the irregularities committed by the YSR regime and stop singing psalms over late chief minister. Rao also strongly felt that the remarks of Union minister and State Congress party affairs incharge Ghulam Nabi Azad that Jagan would have been inducted into the Union Cabinet before installing him as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh also largely contributed to the defeat of the ruling party. He also said that YSRC leader Konda Surekha and BJP had a match-fixing in Parakala.