"Please do not draw me into any controversy. I have decided to stay away from politics on account of my advancing age," said D Srinivas.
Published Mar 27, 2023 | 8:18 PM ⚊ Updated Mar 27, 2023 | 8:19 PM
D Srinivas, son D Sanjay with Telangana Congress leaders. (Twitter)
Former APCC president and former state minister Dharmapuri Srinivas said he resigned from Congress on Monday, 27 March, a day after he appeared to rejoin the party that was his political alma mater.
In a message on Monday, the Backward Class (BC) leader said he did not join the Congress after he quit the party on 2 June, 2015, and if anyone thought that he had rejoined the party on Sunday, he wanted them to think that he had quit the party.
On Sunday, the 74-year-old Srinvas went to Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad in a wheelchair along with his elder son Sanjay, who was once the mayor of Nizamabad, having been elected on a Congress ticket.
He migrated to the erstwhile TRS along with his father. Later, both of them became inactive in the TRS.
At Gandhi Bhavan on Sunday, Sanjay appeared to join the Congress while Srinvas, too, donned the party’s shawl. It gave the impression that he had joined the Congress as well.
He even said entering Gandhi Bhavan was like returning home.
But on Monday, he sent a message that he had resigned from the Congress, should anyone think that he had joined the party.
The three-time legislator said the leaders who covered him in Congress shawls announced that he had joined the party, but it was far from true.
“Please do not draw me into any controversy. I have decided to stay away from politics on account of my advancing age,” said Srinivas on Monday.
He said the same thing in a letter to Congress national president Mallikharjun Kharge.
He even referred to his wife Vijayalakshmi as a witness. He also appealed to Congress leaders not to use him for the party’s political interests.
Vijayalakshmi said that her husband had already suffered a stroke. “I request Congress leaders to leave us alone. Let him have some mental peace,” she said.
There has been speculation over his homecoming for a very long time after he became a pariah in what was the TRS.
The powerful Munnuru Kapu leader, Srinivas, who was sent to Rajya Sabha in 2015 by KCR, suddenly fell from grace.
He was marginalised after KCR’s daughter K Kavitha, who was a Lok Sabha member from Nizamabad, strongly complained to her father against him for encouraging his younger son Dharmapuri Arvind, who was — and still is — in the BJP, and was working against her interests.
As Srinivas has sway over Munnuru Kapu voters, Kavitha was upset over the possible shift of a section of the electorate in favour of his son, which happened in 2019, leading to her defeat in the Lok Sabha election from Nizamabad.
Srinivas continued to be a member of the Rajya Sabha even after KCR declared him persona non grata.
He retired from the Upper House of Parliament only in 2022, and had apparently been toying with the idea of returning to the Congress ever since.
Though Srinvias tried to come back to the Congress, it did not happen for various reasons.
TPCC president A Revanth Reddy visited Srinivas at his home in the past and interceded with the party high command on admitting him into the party.
Even Sonia Gandhi did not have any objection. But what should have happened did not happen.
According to sources, the only thing that held Srinvias back from vigorously pursuing efforts to return to the Congress was opposition from his younger son Arvind.
The sources said Arvind was afraid that if Srinivas was in the fray from any constituency in Nizamabad on a Congress ticket, he might split the Munnuru Kapu vote and thus damage his prospects.
Arvind intends to seek election to the Assembly from Korutla or Armoor in the elections later this year.
In fact, Srinvas would have risen in the BRS had the Arvind factor not played to his disadvantage.
Srinivas and KCR were good friends since 2004 when the Congress came to power in the state under the leadership of the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy. In fact, it was Srinvas who helped KCR strike an electoral alliance with the Congress in 2004.
Even after the demise of Rajasekhara Reddy in 2009, Srinvas remained a good friend of KCR and played a crucial role in taking the Telangana movement forward.
As a token of gratitude, KCR, after winning the 2014 Telangana Assembly elections, sent him to the Rajya Sabha, but he soon fell out with Kavitha, as a result of which he was marginalised.
