Controversial Telangana IAS officer and collector of Siddipet district P Venkatrama Reddy on Monday opted for voluntary retirement from service to join politics.
Chief secretary Somesh Kumar issued a government order in the afternoon, approving Reddy’s decision to take voluntary retirement from service. His resignation was accepted and he was relieved from service with immediate effect.
Venkatrama Reddy announced that he was joining the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi. He is likely to get the party nomination for the state legislative council either under MLAs’ quota or the local bodies’ quota.
“I have resigned from my service and it was accepted. I had been in the service for the last 26 years and worked in various governments in various capacities. It is for the party on how to utilise my services,” he said.
Sources from the chief minister’s office said Venkatrama Reddy got a call from chief minister’s office asking him to meet chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao at Pragati Bhavan in the evening.
The nominations for the MLC seats under MLA’s quota will close on Tuesday. If he is given the MLC seat under local bodies’ quota, he will have to fight the elections to be held on December 10.
It may be mentioned that Venkatrama Reddy was the news recently for warning the seed dealers against selling paddy seeds to farmers during the Rabi season.
He told openly that he would not care for high court or Supreme Court orders, and as long as he was in the collector’s chair, he would not allow sale of even a single kg of paddy seeds by seed dealers. He threatened to send them to jail if they defied his orders.
Later, he denied of making any such comments, after he was pulled up by the high court for threatening the seed dealers.