Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s sudden visit to former speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy’s house and admitting him into Congress party reflects growing frustration in the party over the growth of BJP in Telangana as an alternative political force.
The Congress high-command is said to be taken seriously with the BJP winning a large number of seats both in Telangana and also Karnataka, besides Congress governments in those states. It has started corrective measures and constituted special teams to these states, besides Himachal Pradesh, seeking a report on how to stop BJP’s growth.
On the direction of the party high- command only Revanth Reddy started to revive his `Akarsh Congress’ mission, luring BRS legislators and other prominent leaders into the ruling party. Former minister and MLA Danam Nagender said that as many as 20 BRS MLAs are in touch with Congress.
While 39 MLAs won from BRS in the last election, Kadiam Srihari, Danam Nagender and Tellam Venkat Rao have already joined the Congress fold. Even before the Lok Sabha elections, Revanth Reddy wanted to induct them into the party, but due to various reasons apart from the permission of AICC, PCC did not take any step in that direction.
AICC hesitated to induct BRS MLAs fearing that would attract revolt from existing Congress leaders in those constituencies. However, after its estimation of winning over 14 Lok Sabha seats failed and BJP was able to win 8 seats, equal to Congress seats. This makes the Congress leadership worry and now said to be given green signal for large scale defections into the party.
Particularly Congress said to be focusing mainly on Greater Hyderabad City, where it failed to win a single MLA seat. Only recently its candidate one in the bypoll to Secunderabad Cantonment and BRS MLA Danam Nagender joined BRS. Barring BJP’s Raja Singh, all the remaining MLAs are from BRS.
Moreover, BJP has won all Lok Sabha seats in Greater Hyderabad, except AIMIM retained its hold over Hyderabad. That’s why Congress said to be preparing ground to induct the majority of BRS MLAs from the city.
Dana Nagender claimed that BRS MLAs Kale Yadayah, Arikepudi Gandhi, Goodem Mahipal Reddy, Mutha Gopal, Sudhir Reddy, Vivekanand, Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, Praksha Gowd and others will be joining Congress very soon. Former BRS minister Malla Reddy, who has been facing several cases of land encroachments, is also said to be eager to join Congress.
