The re-entry of former chief minister Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy into the Congress party is unlikely to turn around the fortunes of the party in 2019, as the people have not forgiven it for the mistake it had committed in dividing the combined Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
This was the opinion expressed by former Congress MP from Rajahmundry Vundavalli Arun Kumar in a television interview on Monday.
“I don’t think the people will vote for the Congress party in 2019 though leaders like Kiran returned to the party. It has absolutely no chances of winning even a single MP seat from Andhra Pradesh.
May be, it can win a few MLA seats, that too only it forges alliances with other parties,” Vundavalli said.
He, however, said there were chances of the Congress recovering to a large extent by 2024 if it can sustain itself till then.
On whether he would also return to the Congress party to revive it, Vundavalli said the question did not arise at all.
“I don’t want to join either the Congress party or the Bharatiya Janata Party which were responsible for the division of Andhra Pradesh. In any case, I am not so big a leader to help the Congress party. As far as my political life is concerned, it has already come to an end,” he said.
Vundavalli said all his political life was associated only with the Congress party.
“If I go to Delhi, I will stay with K V P Ramachandra Rao. And almost all the leaders I meet there are from the Congress party. But I cannot rejoin the party at all,” he said.
He predicted the possibility of realignment of political forces in the state and the Centre before 2019 polls.
“We cannot rule out the possibility of some parties tying up with the TDP in the coming elections,” he said.