Senior leaders are making a beeline for the Congress camp, much to the chagrin of BRS supremo Chandrashekar Rao.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy (Sourced)
All is not well with the BRS in Telangana and the Congress is all smiles.
Instead, Chief Minister and Telangana Congress president A Revanth Reddy is sitting pretty, not missing any opportunities to strike when the iron is hot.
Revanth Reddy’s efforts are paying off. What began as claimed courtesy visits after he took over the state’s reins in December turned into a trickle of BRS leaders making a beeline to the Congress camp.
Soon, several Opposition leaders left the BRS and migrated to Congress at regular intervals despite K Chandrashekar Rao’s efforts to keep the flock together.
The state Congress president saw it as an opportunity to strengthen the party in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area and in some other parts of the state where it has been weak. He took the inorganic route to fix the grey areas in the party.
After taking control of the state administration, Revanth Reddy has been going after sitting MPs, MLAs, and municipal and corporation chairpersons to fortify the party in Hyderabad. Revanth Reddy, the hunted when BRS was in power, became the hunter for a change.
Chandrashekar Rao could do nothing to stop the migration from BRS. Even seasoned leaders like Rajya Sabha member K Keshava Rao bid goodbye to KCR and joined the Congress.
Gadwal Vijayalakshmi. (File pic/Facebook)
The symptoms became apparent when BRS MLAs and leaders began calling on Revanth Reddy, offering him bouquets and later claiming that they had met him only to ensure funds for the development of their constituencies.
Even though the trend was not to the liking of the BRS leadership. Realising that he could not stop the leaders from meeting Revanth Reddy, KCR asked them to visit the chief minister, if they wanted to, in the open to prevent rumours of switching loyalties.
Hyderabad Mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi fuelled speculation after she met Revanth Reddy. She claimed that the meeting was to ensure smooth communication between the GHMC and the government in taking up development schemes and securing the government’s approval for the civic body’s budget.
Even as her justification remained fresh in public memory, Vijayalakshmi found herself in the Conges scamp, wearing the party’s scarf. She is understood to have told the chief minister she would get her brood of corporators to the party and make it strong in some Assembly segments in Hyderabad.
The Congress is spreading its wings in Hyderabad fast. The GHMC has four Lok Sabha constituencies within its limits: Secunderabad, Malakajgiri, Chevella, and Hyderabad. Even if Hyderabad is left to the AIMIM, Congress stands to gain in the remaining three seats.
Keshava Rao and his daughter Vijayalakshmi’s exit must have been a rude shock to the BRS since KCR himself reportedly lost his cool when Keshava Rao, in all humility, met him personally to break the news that he was leaving the BRS. This is the first indication that the BRS is jittery over the exodus of the leaders from the party.
The BRS is also unable to hit back at the Congress for engineering defections since it was exactly what the BRS had done after winning 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly in 2018.
The sucker punches the BRS received included the departure of Station Ghanpur MLA Kadiyam Srihari and his daughter Dr Kadiyam Kavya. KCR must have felt humiliated on receiving a letter from Kavya, saying she was contesting from Warangal -SC seat as a BRS candidate.
Kadiyam Kavya and her father BRS MLA Kadiyam Srihari joined the Congress on Sunday, 31 March. (Facebook)
She wrote the letter after accepting the BRS ticket and even thanked KCR for the confidence he had reposed in her. But as Revanth Reddy reached out to Srihari, he made his daughter dash off the letter to KCR.
Adding to the insult, Kavya stated that she was leaving BRS since she was disillusioned with the party after reports of its involvement in scams and land-grabbing cases surfaced. The BRS cried foul over the betrayal by the father-daughter duo and urged party leaders to defeat her in the election.
The Congress, by then, had nominated her as its candidate in Warangal.
Another bolt out of the blue soon came when Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender sauntered into the Congress camp. His name was included in the party’s official list of candidates. He was to contest from Secunderabad.
The BRS approached the Assembly Speaker with a request to disqualify both Nagender and Srihari. The Speaker’s decision is pending, even as reports said more BRS MLAs might join the Congress in the presence of Rahul Gandhi.
Gandhi is slated to address a rally in Hyderabad on Saturday, 6 April.
Nagender being a legislator from Hyderabad legislator, the Congress hoped that he would script victory in Secunderabad with the chief minister’s support. The party feels that the BRS nominee, T Padma Rao, is no match for Nagender.
Danam Nagender with CM Revanth Reddy (X)
In Malakajgiri, Revanth Reddy has the Patnam family to take on BJP’s tall leader Eatala Rajender. Though the contest is tough, the chief minister hopes to bank on his contacts in the constituency, which had sent him to the Lok Sabha in 2019.
Vikarabad Zilla Parishad chairperson P Sunitha Mahender Reddy, the wife of BRS MLC Patnam Mahender Reddy, is the Congress candidate. She hopes to sail the anti-BRS wave to sink Rajendra at the hustings.
Chevella, though a rural constituency, has four Assembly segments: Maheswaram, Rajendranagar, Serilingampally, and Chevella. The constituency is witnessing an interesting contest between G Ranjit Reddy, who dumped the BRS for Congress, and K Visweswar Reddy, who left the Congress and joined the BJP.
Both leaders with deep pockets are confident of winning the seat. Ranjith Reddy is hopeful of winning the seat as the Congress, which is fielding him, is on a roll in the state.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
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