The war of words between Telugu Desam Party MLA from Visakhapatnam (north) Ganta Srinivasa Rao and present Andhra Pradesh tourism minister Muthamsetti Srinivasa Rao alias Avanti Srinivas has reached a new high.
For the last few days, there have been reports that Ganta had been serious trying to defect into the YSR Congress party headed by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
But he could not succeed in his attempts and he has strongly suspected that it was Avanti who has been stalling his entry into the YSRC as the minister would feel insecure about his position.
“If I want to join the YSR Congress party, nobody can stop me. Who is Avanti? I don’t even consider him as a minister. He doesn’t have the stature to talk about me,” Ganta said the other day.
Enraged at this, Avanthi Srinivas said he could see that Ganta could not even move in Visakhapatnam.
“Forget as an MLA, I don’t treat Ganta even as a human being. If he makes any comments against me, I can expose all his irregularities and dig out his background,” Avanti said.
In fact, till a couple of months before the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh held in April, Ganta and Avanti Srinivas were said to be very good friends in TDP. While Ganta was representing Bhimili and was in the Chandrababu Naidu cabinet, Avanti was an MP from Anakapalle.
Trouble started when Avanti wanted to contest from Bhimili assembly constituency and asked Ganta to move to Visakhapatnam (North) in the assembly elections. Ganta flatly refused. And Naidu also refused to entertain Avanti’s request.
Upset with it, Avanti defected to the YSRC, which offered him the ticket from Bhimili. Ironically, Naidu also forced Ganta to shift from Bhimili to Vizag (north) finally and gave the TDP ticket to Sabbam Hari.
Of course, Ganta won the Vizag seat ultimately, he is not happy in the TDP which lost power. And Avanti won the Bhimili seat and became the minister. Since then, both Avanti and Ganta have been at loggerheads.