Gossip Man Who Is Making Congress 'Piss'

Now that the maverick minister Dr P Shankar Rao is out of the cabinet, the Congress leadership has begun to calculate the amount of damage he can do to the party. There are fears that the eccentric Dalit leader could train his guns at the party leadership and create embarrassment ahead of the elections.

The biggest worry for the Congress is that Shankar Rao might spill the beans about the circumstances surrounding his petition in the High Court that led to the CBI investigation into the alleged illegal assets of YSR Congress Party President Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.

It is widely believed that Shankar Rao was rewarded with a cabinet berth for his campaign against Jagan and dragging him into a legal quagmire. Now, he can turn around and seek to expose the Congress leaders who encouraged him to move the court.

The possibility of the dropped minister staging a revolt is causing concern for the party leadership. Out of power, Shankar Rao can be a loose cannon difficult to control.