In a jolt to the BJP in Telangana, former MLA Rathod Bapu Rao left the party to join the ruling Congress on Monday.
Bapu Rao, a two-time MLA from Boath constituency, joined the Congress in the presence of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and state minister Seethakka.
Bapu Rao, who was elected on the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) ticket in 2014 and 2018, quit the party after he was denied re-nomination by the party in the November 2023 Assembly elections. He had joined the BJP but was unhappy over not getting the ticket.
With the Congress wresting power from the BRS, Bapu Rao decided to join the ruling party. His joining is likely to strengthen the party in Boath, one of the seven Assembly segments under the Adilabad Lok Sabha constituency.
In the recent Assembly elections, the BRS had retained the Boath seat with its candidate Anil Jadhav defeating his nearest rival and Adilabad MP Soyam Bapu Rao of the BJP by over 22,000 votes. The Congress had finished a poor third.
Adilabad was one of the four Lok Sabha seats won by the BJP in Telangana in the 2019 elections. The BJP has denied a ticket to the sitting MP and fielded former minister and former MP Godam Ganesh. The party won four out of seven Assembly seats in the parliamentary constituency. The BRS secured two seats while Congress could win just one seat.