A powerful Kamma leader of Khammam district, Thummala is keen on contesting from the Palair constituency.
Published Sep 01, 2023 | 8:35 AM ⚊ Updated Sep 01, 2023 | 8:35 AM
Telangana Congress chief A Revanth Reddy with Thummala Nageswara Rao.
The Telangana Congress has made its move to land former minister and BRS leader Thummala Nageswara Rao, who has been fuming over the BRS leadership not nominating him for the Palair Assembly seat in erstwhile Khammam district.
State Congress president A Revanth Reddy, senior vice-president Mallu Ravi, and former minister B Sudarshan Reddy called on Nageswara Rao on Thursday, 31 August, and invited him to join the Congress.
“We have invited Nageswara Rao into the Congress. Society needs leaders like him,” he said, adding that Thummala had told him that he would take a decision after discussing the proposal with his supporters.
The Congress delegation invited Nageswara Rao, who is keen on contesting the Assembly elections from Palair, to join the party, at a time when YSRTP president YS Sharmila, who is also bent on contesting from the seat, had called on party senior leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi earlier in the day.
Though it is not yet known the outcome of her meeting with Sonia and Rahul, there is a buzz that she had expressed her willingness to merge her party in the Congress if it fields her from Palair in Telangana.
However, since the beginning, the Congress had been asking her to move to Andhra Pradesh and even offered a berth in Rajya Sabha.
It is not as though Nageswara Rao is not aware of the development. Sources told South First that Nageswara Rao who has been watching the changing patterns in the political kaleidoscope, decided to wait and see how Sharmila’s merger move would pan out before taking a call to join the Congress.
The BRS, too, is not ready to lose Nageswara Rao, a powerful Kamma leader from Khammam district, and had even tried to cajole him to stay with the party.
Party floor leader in the Lok Sabha, Nama Nageswara Rao, had called on him recently and tried to persuade him to stay on in the BRS instead of looking greener pastures elsewhere.
Though it had been very clear from beginning that BRS would be renominate all the sitting MLAs in the Assembly elections slated for year-end, Thummala Nageswara Rao was confident that he would be fielded from Palair which is now being represented by Kandala Upender Reddy.
Upender Reddy won the seat in the 2018 Assembly elections on a Congress ticket by defeating Nageswara Rao, and later joined the BRS.
After Nageswara Rao lost the election, KCR marginalised him, which led to him feel that he was being given a gentle brush-off.
When he began speaking of charting his own course a few months ago, KCR sent Finance Minister T Harish Rao to Nageswara Rao, as both of them have a good rapport.
Harish Rao, an able trouble-shooter for the BRS, counselled with him at length against taking any drastic decision and to stay with the BRS. After Harish Rao called on him, he began entertaining fresh hopes of getting the ticket for the Palair seat.
When KCR announced the list of party candidates for 115 of the 119 Assembly seats recently, Nageswara Rao was reportedly shocked to find his name missing.
After staying put in Hyderabad for a couple of days, he left for Khammam, where thousands of his supporters welcomed him in a major show of strength that literally left him in tears. Addressing the crowd, Nageswara Rao had said that he would contest from Palair come what may. And till date he has not changed his mind.
