He was very hopeful that he would get the ticket despite KCR announcing in the past that all sitting MLAs would be renominated.
File photo of Thummala Nageswara Rao. (Supplied)
Feeling betrayed, former Telangana minister Thummala Nageswara Rao, who was denied a BRS ticket from the Palair Assembly segment, reached Khammam on Friday, 25 August, as thousands of his supporters waiting for his arrival raised slogans in his support.
It was a major show of strength as his supporters followed Thummala into Khammam town in hundreds of cars and bikes. No vehicle carried a BRS flag, indicative of their resentment against the party.
A forlorn Nageswara Rao, who had been in Hyderabad for the last few days, left for Khammam in the morning and wiped the tears off his eyes even as he was leaving, even as his supporters tried to comfort him.
After reaching Khammam, he told his supporters that he would contest the upcoming Assembly elections come what may.
“I will not rest until I wash your feet with Godavari water,” he said, implying the completion of the Seetharama Lift Irrigation Scheme.
“I will not bow before anyone even if it means I have to sever my head,” he said, taking a swipe at his rivals within the party, who apparently worked against him.
“There are some people who are gloating over the denial of a ticket to me. But I am not here to comment on them,” he said.
After KCR fielded sitting MLA Kandala Upender Reddy from Palair, Nageswara Rao’s dream lay shattered.
He was very hopeful that he would get the ticket despite KCR announcing in the past that all sitting MLAs would be renominated.
Nageswara Rao’s confidence stemmed from the fact that at a time when he was feeling deeply hurt over being sidelined and rumours doing rounds that he might chart his future course of action outside BRS, Finance Minister T Harish Rao met with him and counselled him to wait for better days as KCR would surely do justice to him.
Nageswara Rao, a powerful kamma leader, apparently never suspected that he would be left out. His son Thummala Yugandhar told reporters in Khammam that his father would contest from Palair.
“My father will discuss his plans with party workers before taking a decision. He has not yet made up what line of action he should take. He would first interact with people of Palair constituency and confer with party workers,” he said
Asked if his father would join the Congress, in light of intense speculation to that effect, he said that it was only a hypothetical question since his father was yet to take a call on what he should do going forward.
“My father wants to contest from Palair as he wants to be part of the execution of the Seetharama Lift Irrigation Scheme,” said Yugandhar, adding that his father always preferred to be elected to the Assembly as he is a people’s man.
Nageswara Rao, contesting on a TDP ticket, lost the 2014 Assembly election from Khammam. He joined the BRS in September of the same year.
He was inducted into the Legislative Council and the state Cabinet. He contested and won a by-election from Palair in May 2015 and continued as a minister, but lost Palair to Congress nominee Kandala Upender Reddy in the 2018 election.
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