Even as the reports of the resignation of senior YSR Congress party leader and Rajya Sabha member Mopidevi Venkata Ramana from the party triggered an uproar in the party, there are fresh reports of another Rajya Sabha member deciding to call it quits to the party.
According to these reports, businessman-turned-politician Beeda Mastan Rao, who was made Rajya Sabha member by YSRCP president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2022, has also decided to resign from the party, along with Mopidevi.
Reports from Delhi said Mastan Rao and Mopidevi would also resign from their Rajya Sabha membership in a day or two, before returning to the state to join the Telugu Desam Party. Unconfirmed sources said a couple of other Rajya Sabha members also might quit the party in a few days.
Masthan Rao, better known as B M Rao is the chairman of BMR Group, a shrimp farming and exports firm with plants in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
A backward class leader belonging to the Yadava community, his political journey began with TDP in 1983 and was elected as MLA from Kavali Assembly seat in 2004 and 2009.
He lost to YSRCP candidate from Kavali in 2014. In 2019, he contested from Nellore Lok Sabha seat but lost to YSRCP candidate. He was also a member of the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority.
In December 2019, Rao joined the YSRCP after quitting TDP over "personal reasons." He became a Rajya Sabha MP in 2022.
In a further shock, there are reports that YSRCP legislative council member and YSRCP women’s wing president Pothula Sunitha is also planning to quit the party in a day or two.
Sunitha, who hails from Chirala in Bapatla constituency, was originally in the Telugu Desam Party. Her husband Pothula Suresh was a close follower of former minister and TDP leader Paritala Ravi. Both husband and wife were ex-Naxalites, along with Ravi.
In 2017, Sunitha was nominated as the MLC by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu. But in 2020, she resigned from the party and her MLC seat, though she still had three years’ tenure in the council and joined the YSRCP.
Jagan made her MLC again in 2021 under MLAs’ quota. As her term ended in March 2023, she was nominated again as the MLC for the third term. Later, she was also made the president of YSRCP women’s wing.
But now with the YSRCP losing power, Sunitha is learnt to have decided to quit the YSRCP and return to her parent party – the TDP.