Within hours of social media reports going agog with speculations that the Bharatiya Janata Party is planning to lure senior Telugu Desam Party leader from Srikakulam district Kimidi Kala Venkat Rao into the party, he denied the reports.
Kala Venkat Rao, who had been heading the TDP’s Andhra Pradesh unit till recently, clarified to the media in the afternoon that he had no plans whatsoever to join the BJP.
“There is absolutely no truth in these reports,” he said.
He made it clear that he would continue to sail with the TDP till his last breath and party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu would be his leader.
“I am doing fine in the TDP and there is no need for me right now to change parties,” he said.
On BJP state president Somu Veerraju’s proposed visit to his house on Saturday, Kala Venkat Rao said he was not aware of it. “I didn’t get any message from him that he would be visiting my house,” he said.
In fact, the speculations of Kala Venkat Rao quitting the TDP and joining the BJP evoked no surprise, as changing parties was not new for him. In January 2009, he resigned from the TDP and joined Praja Rajyam Party floated by megastar Chiranjeevi, hoping that being a Kapu, he would get a lot of importance there.
Chiranjeevi even made him political affairs committee member, but when Praja Rajyam Party failed to make an impact in the elections, Venkat Rao returned to the TDP in May 2010.
“Moreover, it is an open secret that Kala Venkat Rao has differences with the family of late Kinjarapu Yerran Naidu. So, he was upset with Yerran’s brother Atchan Naidu becoming the TDP Andhra unit chief. Naturally, it lent credence to the speculations that Kala Venkat Rao is joining the BJP,” sources said.