Stepping up their attempts to form a pressure group in Andhra Pradesh so as to gain legitimate share in power, the Kapus in the state, cutting across the party lines, are learnt to have decided to form a joint forum to achieve their goal.
In continuation of their meeting held at Hotel Daspalla in Hyderabad in December, several prominent Kapu leaders held a virtual conference through Zoom App on Sunday to discuss their strategy.
According to sources, the Kapu leaders have decided to play active role in consolidating their vote bank, irrespective of their political affiliation, with an ultimate objective of achieving power through intense lobbying.
The leaders felt that Kapu vote bank had hitherto been split due to lack of coordination among the community leaders.
Though the community can play a major role in deciding the fate of the candidates in several constituencies, they have not been able to utilize their potential due to lack of unity.
“It is true that the vote bank is split as the leaders are in different parties. There is a need to bring about a unity among the Kapu leaders so as to see that the community can display true potential,” a leader observed.
At the Zoom meeting, the leaders have decided to form a joint forum, primarily with the objective of getting maximum number of seats for Kapus from all parties.
The forum would act as a pressure group so that they could bring pressure on all the parties to fulfil their demands.
While the Kapu leaders from YSR Congress party have stayed away from the meeting for obvious reasons, other Kapu leaders like Ganta Srinivas Rao and Bonda Uma from TDP, Vatti Vasanth Kumar from Congress, retired IAS officers Rammohan Rao, M V G K Bhanu and former IPS officer Sambasiva Rao attended the meeting.
In the previous meeting, former joint director of CBI V V Lakshminarayana, Vangaveeti Radhakrishna from Vijayawada, Kanna Lakshminarayana from Guntur, Thota Chandrasekhar from East Godavari and others attended.
“The ultimate objective of the two meetings is to see that the community gets maximum number of seats from whichever party they belong to, so that a Kapu strongman will become the chief minister.
A four-member core committee headed by JD is learnt to have been formed to work out a future course of action.