As the nominations for the upcoming Telangana assembly elections came to a close on Friday evening, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders has started luring the disgruntled Congress leaders with a view to deny any kind of advantage to the opposition party.
On Saturday, senior Congress leader and spokesperson Palvai Sravanthi, daughter of former minister and Nalgonda strongman Palvai Goverdhan Reddy, quit the party and joined the BRS.
Sravanthi, who unsuccessfully contested as the Congress candidate from Munugode in the last year’s byelections, expected that she would get the party ticket this time also.
But the Congress gave the ticket to Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who returned to the party after resigning from the Bharatiya Janata Party. He lost the seat to the BRS candidate K Prabhakar Reddy last time.
Sravanthi wrote a strongly-worded letter to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi that she had quit Congress in all capacities with immediate effect.
She said she had waited for a painfully longer period, with a hope that the leaders sitting in Delhi would act on the collateral damage the party was suffering in Telangana, thanks to one person’s attempts to turn it into a commercial entity.
“It is highly deplorable how Rajagopala Reddy, who was responsible for Munugode by poll and who was crying foul against Revanth was overnight accepted back and was given a ticket,” she said.
On Friday, former Minister Sambhani Chandrasekhar, Osmania University student leader K Manavatha Rai, TPCC general secretary Edavelli Krishna and several other Congress leaders from erstwhile Khammam district joined the BRS.
Meanwhile, BJP State executive committee member Janardhan Reddy, Congress leaders Nomula Prakash Rao, Jagadeeshwar, Praveen Lala, Md Shakir, BSP leaders Ramavath Ramesh Naik and Dharmapuram Srinivas, among others joined the BRS in the presence of the party working president KT Rama Rao at Telangana Bhavan on Friday.