With the talk of early elections in Andhra Pradesh doing rounds in the political circles, it is time again for “Aayaa Rams and Gayaa Rams” to change the parties to suit their political interests.
On Monday, former Andhra Pradesh minister and BJP state vice-president Ravela Kishore Babu announced his resignation from the Bharatiya Janata Party on personal grounds. This is the third party he has quit in the last four years.
In his letter to BJP state president Somu Veerraju, the prominent Dalit leader said he had joined the BJP after being attracted by the clean and stable government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre.
“The respect and admiration Modi had towards Dr B R Ambedkar compelled me to join the BJP. I still feel Modi’s leadership was very much essential for the country to develop into a powerful nation in the world and overcome the socio-economic and political inequalities,” he said.
While thanking Veerraju for giving me a prominent position in the party by making him BJP vice-president, Ravela said he was unable to continue in the party for his personal and family reasons.
“I am resigning from the party and his post. Please don’t think otherwise,” he said in the letter.
Ravela Kishore Babu was an Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) officer before joining the TDP before the 2014 elections. He had won from Prathipadu constituency in Guntur district and was made Social Welfare minister.
However, in March 2017, Ravela was dropped from the cabinet during the cabinet expansion. Since then, he had been sulking.
In March 2018, he jumped into Jana Sena Party led by Pawan Kalyan, alleging that he had to face humiliation in the TDP.
He said then that though Chandrababu Naidu had respected and given him a seat, leaders in the party level had discriminated against him as he was a Dalit.
In 2019 assembly elections, Ravela contested from the same Prathipadu constituency, but lost the seat with a big margin.
Subsequently, Ravela did not last long in Jana Sena. Within a month of the assembly elections, he defected to the BJP and was made party vice-president.
However, he has not been active in the BJP, too and has been keeping himself away from the party activities for quite some time.
Now that he has quit the TDP, it is believed that he might return to his parent party TDP and try his luck again. It is not immediately known whether he got any clearance from the TDP leadership.