The meeting of four Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs with Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Tuesday night kicked up a lot of heat and dust in the state political circles, fuelling speculations that they might soon take a plunge into the Congress.
The development assumed all the more significance, because the four MLAs – Sunitha Laxma Reddy from Narsapur, K Prabhakar Reddy from Dubbak, G Mahipal Reddy from Patancheru and K Manik Rao from Zaheerabad – are from erstwhile Medak district represented by BRS president and former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
And at least three of them were originally from the Congress party and they had jumped into the BRS a few years ago. Moreover, there are reports that KCR would be contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Medak this time.
On Wednesday, the four MLAs, apparently getting a strong rap from the party high command, had to address a joint press conference to give an explanation why they had gone to meet Revanth Reddy at his residence last night.
They clarified that they had met Revanth Reddy to represent the issues being faced by them in their respective constituencies and also submit memorandum on the developmental works in their constituencies.
“It is like Revanth Reddy meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi,” they said.
The MLAs said they had paid a courtesy call on the Chief Minister to represent public issues and protocol issues haunting them.
“There is nothing wrong in meeting the chief minister and the other ministers for the sake of development of our constituencies,” Sunitha Laxma Reddy said.
Ruling out any plans to shift their loyalties from the BRS to the Congress, they reiterated that they would continue to be in the fold of the BRS party till the end.
They said they had met the chief minister only with the concurrence of the BRS leadership. They said they do enjoy the confidence of the party leadership.
“We have the freedom to interact or meet the ministers for the development of the state”, they stressed. They said they had made a representation to the chief minister on the irrigation projects in Medak district.
“If needed, we would meet Revanth Reddy or the ministers concerned once again,” they said adding that they had informed him that they called on even the intelligence chief and informed him of the protocol issues they were facing in the constituencies.
“Often we were being insulted in the official functions by giving a go by to the official protocols,” they added.
“I am a disciplined leader and continued to work for the party, reposing full faith in the party leadership. It is a deliberate attempt to defame us by making baseless attributions. We will file a defamation case against those responsible for this,” said Sunita Laxma Reddy.
“We need gunmen. There were many issues to be resolved by the government. All such issues were taken up with the chief minister,” she explained.