Putting an end to speculations that they would join the Bharatiya Janata Party, former minister from Warangal Konda Surekha and her husband Konda Murali are understood to have decided to stay back in the Congress party, at least for now.
On Friday, Surekha and Murali met All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of Telangana Manickam Tagore at Gandhi Bhavan as part of the latter’s opinion collection for the selection of new Pradesh Congress Committee president for Telangana.
Sources said the Konda couple expressed their serious dissatisfaction over the happenings in the Congress party in Telangana and lack of proper leadership in the state that led to the serious debacles in the elections. They complained to Tagore that they were being sidelined in the party.
However, the Konda couple told the AICC leader that they would continue in the Congress party and would not join the BJP, if they were given control over the party activities in the forthcoming elections to Warangal Municipal Corporation.
Tagore reportedly gave Surekha and Murali an assurance that they would get due powers in the selection of candidates for the Warangal Municipal Corporation elections.
He asked them to focus on these elections so as to revive the party in Warangal in coordination with the district party leaders.
Konda Surekha and Murali, who played a major role in the Congress party during the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy regime, later quit the party and joined the YSR Congress party. But somehow, they did not gel with Jagan Mohan Reddy.
After the formation of Telangana state, they moved into the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, but they did not get the kind of freedom they were enjoying during the Congress period.
As a result, they returned to the Congress party before 2018 elections and have been continuing in it since then.