Hyderabad: Several months after bifurcation of the state and elections, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana remain in the grip of political upheavals as the major parties try to expand their support bases at the cost of rivals.
While in Telangana two Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLAs formally joined the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), giving a boost to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s efforts to strengthen his party in the state capital, Congress and the YSR Congress Party suffered a jolt in Andhra Pradesh.
Kanna Lakshminarayana, one of the most senior Congress leaders from coastal Andhra, has resigned from the party, only to meet BJP President Amit Shah and announce his decision to join the saffron party.
Lakshminarayana, is a five time legislator from Guntur district and held many important portfolios in Congress government. He is also an accused in the disproportionate assets case of Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
“I want to work to strengthen the BJP,” he said, rejecting accusations that he was doing it for the sake of power since BJP was ruling at the centre and was also a partner in AP government with the TDP.
Lakshminarayana is likely to formally join the BJP at a public meeting in Guntur next week, which is expected to be attended by Amit Shah.
In another development, senior leader and former minister Konathala Ramakrishna has quit the YSR Congress Party of Jaganmohan Reddy and decided to return to the Congress fold. He was one of the several top leaders of Congress to quit in protest against the bifurcation of the state earlier this year.
He was reportedly unhappy with Jaganmohan Reddy for bringing his rival Dadi Veerabhadra Rao in to the party fold.
Meanwhile, with the two senior MLAs from Hyderabad joining the TRS, the ongoing fight between Telugu Desam and TRS was likely to intensify further.
T. Srinivas Yadav, former TDP in charge of Hyderabad unit and T. Krishna Reddy, the former Mayor of Hyderabad formally joined the party at a public meeting attended by the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
While T. Srinivas Yadav is MLA from Secunderabad, T. Krishna Reddy is the MLA from Maheshwaram constituency, one of the few that TDP won in the last elections in Telangana.
Another TDP lawmaker, C. Dharma Reddy, from Parkal in Warangal, was also likely to join the TRS soon at another meeting to be held in his constituency.
