Vijayashanthi is a special invitee to the BJP National Executive Council, but has been keeping away from the party affairs for some time.
Published Nov 18, 2023 | 1:31 AM ⚊ Updated Nov 18, 2023 | 11:41 AM
File photo of Vijayashanthi. (VijayashanthiOfficial/Facebook)
The “Lady Amitabh” is back in the Congress: After keeping everyone guessing for the last few days, actor-turned-politician Vijayashanti found her way back into the fold of the grand old party, bidding adieu to the BJP.
Known for her unpredictable decisions and tendency to play hard to get at, Vijayashanti on Friday, 17 November, lowered the curtains on the suspense over whether she would abandon the BJP after giving enough indications that she would.
She met AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge in Hyderabad and greeted him with a shawl. He reciprocated her gesture by adorning her with the Congress kanduva — a shawl-like cloth with the colours of the party flag.
ఎంతో ఆదరణతో, సమున్నతమైన గౌరవంతో స్వాగతించిన, కాంగ్రెస్ అధిష్టానానికి రాష్ట్ర నాయకత్వానికి హృదయపూర్వక కృతజ్ఞతలు..
హరహర మహాదేవ్
జై తెలంగాణ
జైహింద్ pic.twitter.com/Xxqsm9O10e
— VIJAYASHANTHI (@vijayashanthi_m) November 17, 2023
Vijayashanti is currently a special invitee to the National Executive Council of the BJP, but she has been keeping aloof from the party affairs for a long time.
The former Medak MP — on a ticket from the TRS (now BRS) — seemed to have been miffed after her name was absent from the list of BJP candidates as well as campaigners for the 30 November Telangana Assembly elections.
Mallu Ravi, a senior Congress leader and vice-president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), said on 11 November that she would soon be resigning from the BJP and returning to the Congress fold.
“There is a political transformation happening in Telangana; and as far as I know, many people — including key leaders like Vijayashanti — are joining the Congress,” he told reporters.
With the air thick with expectations that the former actress would do a “ghar waapsi“, she recently made a sudden appearance at the airport and received Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
She refused to confirm at that time that she was joining the Congress, but gave enough indication that she had gone to the airport only to receive the prime minister, and that she was not going to attend Modi’s rally.
All has not been well between Vijayashanti and the BJP for some time now. She has been absent from party meetings and has also skipped rallies by Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Earlier, at an event to welcome G Kishan Reddy as the state chief of the party when he took over from Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Vijayashanti left the BJP headquarters in a huff as soon as N Kiran Kumar Reddy began speaking.
Kiran Kumar Reddy, the former chief minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh had joined the party in the recent past.
Vijayashanti cited “discomfort” over the presence of individuals who suppressed the Telangana movement at the event, in an oblique reference to Kiran Kumar Reddy.
Since rumours of her joining the Congress surfaced, there had been a political debate on her potential impact.
Political experts said they believe that she joining in the Congress would strengthen the trend of inflow to the party, and the star campaigner’s image would further enhance the Congress’ standing in rural areas.
It was also expected to dent the BJP, which is currently losing key leaders to the Congress and the BRS.
In 1997, Vijayashanti — then referred to as South India’s “Lady Amitabh Bachchan” for her action-packed roles — started her political journey with the BJP, and was soon made general secretary of the party’s women’s wing.
In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, she was the BJP’s candidate for the Kadapa constituency against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi. However, she withdrew from the race when Sonia moved to contest from Bellary in Karnataka.
In 2005, amid the growing agitation for a separate Telangana state, Vijayashanthi quit the BJP and floated her own outfit — the Talli Telangana Party — to advocate for statehood.
She eventually the party with the TRS (which became the BRS last year) and secured a Lok Sabha seat from Medak in 2009.
When the TRS hesitated to field her again, differences emerged between its chief K Chandrashekar Rao and Vijayashanti, leading to her suspension for “anti-party activities”.
Joining the Congress in 2014, she contested and lost from the Medak Assembly constituency. After nearly three years in exile, she resurfaced in 2017, expressing commitment to the success of the Congress in Telangana. However, she parted ways with the Congress and joined the BJP in 2020.
Now, three years later, she is rejoining the Congress, and expected to campaign for the Assembly elections and likely contest the 2024 parliamentary election.
