It is an open secret that former minister Kanna Lakshminarayana, who had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday had been a bitter rival of former MP and Telugu Desam Party leader Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, right from the days when they were in the Congress party.
Such was their rivalry that Rayapati had levelled wild allegations of corruption against Kanna and the latter had filed a defamation suit for Rs 1 crore against the former in 2010, when both of them were in the Congress.
The court litigation went on for nearly 12 years and in the meantime, Rayapati joined the TDP and Kanna jumped the fence into the Bharatiya Janata Party to become its state president. The war of words continued even after that.
However, in November 2022, both Rayapati and Kanna entered into some sort of compromise and went in for out of the court settlement.
While Rayapati told the court that he was withdrawing his allegations against Kanna, the latter withdrew the defamation case against Rayapati.
There was a talk that it was TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu brokered the compromise between Kanna and Rayapati. It was only after this deal, Kanna began revolting against the BJP and preparing the ground to join the TDP.
On Friday, Rayapati told reporters that he had absolutely no objection to Kanna joining the TDP and if Naidu directs, he would definitely work in coordination with Kanna.
“I don’t have any personal rivalry with Kanna. Both of worked together in Pedakurapadu constituency. He was encouraged by Chebrolu Hanumaiah, Y S Rajasekhar Reddy and N Janardhan Reddy. I don’t mind working for his victory, if Naidu gives him the party ticket,” Rayapati said.
The former MP said he had own cadre support and Kanna had his own cadre base.
“We are not rivals. We shall definitely work together,” he added.