The rift that existed between the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and former Telangana governor Dr Tamilsai Soundarajan, when both were in office, is continuing even though both of them are now out of office.
BRS lost power in last year’s Assembly elections and is now confined to opposition. Soon after, Dr Tamilsai also resigned as Governor and contested as BJP candidate in Lok Sabha elections from Chennai.
During her tenure in Raj Bhavan, BRS practically `ignored’ her presence as Governor for most of time, as none of the ministers, even Chief Minister and senior officials of the government hardly met her. She complained several times that the government was not following her `protocal’ as none of senior officials received her during her tours in districts.
As former governor, for the first time she is in Telangana for BJP campaign in Lok Sabha polls, as polling in her constituency was over in the first phase. Though she mostly confined herself to spreading the message of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to voters, BRS seems to be unable to forget her.
BRS has filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India (ECI) here for distributing replicas of the Ayodhya Ram temple at MLA Colony in Secunderabad on Wednesday. The party sought her immediate debarment from participating in any future election campaigns and also disqualification of BJP Secunderabad candidate G Kishan Reddy.
In its complaint, the BRS said Soundararajan’s act of distributing the replicas was a deliberate violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and also Section 123 (3) of the Representation of People Act.
Her actions undermined the principles of free and fair elections and sought to leverage religious sentiments to influence voters to favour a particular party and its candidate, it said. BRS general secretary M Sreenivas Reddy said Soundararajan disobeyed the orders and promoted the party on basis of religion by distributing the replicas of the Ram temple to the general public for political gain of BJP and the contesting candidate
As BJP star campaigner in the state, she participated in a poll campaign on behalf of Kishan Reddy, to interact with the Tamil population in Hyderabad.
