Telangana Jana Samithi leader and former Osmania University professor M Kodandaram is likely to merge his party with the Telangana Congress party sooner or later, according to speculations doing rounds in the political circles.
Kodandaram, who spearheaded the movement for separate Telangana movement between 2009 and 2014 in coordination with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, later parted ways with TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao and floated his own political party – TJS – before 2018 elections.
His party had joined the grand alliance comprising the Congress, the Telugu Desam Party and the Communist Party of India and fought the state assembly elections in December 2018, but the TJS did not make any mark.
As a result, the TJS has become virtually defunct as all its leaders left the party one after the other.
Kodandaram has not been able to run the party effectively and he, himself, lost the MLC elections from Warangal recently.
Though the people of Telangana have soft corner towards Kodandaram, he lacks the financial strength and the strategies to run a political party.
So, he has realised that there is no point in continuing the TJS, sources said.
In the last few months, there were talks between Kodandaram and Revanth Reddy over the merger of TJS joining the Congress party.
Kodandaram reportedly told Revanth that he would consider the merger proposal only after the latter became the PCC chief.
In fact, Revanth also tried to rope former TRS minister Eatala Rajender into the Congress.
On behalf of Revanth, Kodandaram and former MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy went to Eatala’s residence and proposed him to join the Congress. But Eatala preferred the BJP to the Congress.
Now that Revanth has become the TPCC chief, the talks with Kodandaram for merger of the TJS with the Congress are expected to revive.
If will definitely be a plus point for the Congress if Kodandaram merges his party with it.
A final decision would be taken after getting the green signal from the Congress high command, sources added.