It has been quite common in politics that leaders do defect from one party to another. When they are in one party, they attack the rival party, but after joining the rival party, the same leaders abuse the leaders of the parent party.
There are umpteen examples for the same. Take the case of YSR Congress party leader Ummareddy Venkateshwarlu.
He was more loyal than the king when he was in the Telugu Desam Party and had even written two books praising party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu. After defecting to the YSRC, he turned a bitter critic of Naidu.
There are many such leaders – Kodali Nani, R K Roja, Avanti Srinivas, Vallabhaneni Vamsi, Karanam Balaram, who were loyalists of Naidu when they were in the TDP but foul-mouthed him after joining the YSRC.
The TDP, too, has admitted several leaders who had earlier abused him, like J C Diwakar Reddy, Jyothula Nehru, Gottipati Ravi Kumar etc. But there is nothing unusual about it and it is an open secret.
But, Bharatiya Janata Party state president Somu Veerraju might have thought these political defections might fetch some mileage to his party in the ensuing by-election to Tirupati parliamentary seat.
So, he churned out an old video of present TDP candidate Panabaka Lakshmi made some critical comments about Chandrababu Naidu when she was in the Congress party enjoying the position of the minister in Union cabinet.
The video shows Panabaka accusing Naidu of entering the TDP through backdoor methods and grabbing power by backstabbing his own father-in-law N T Rama Rao. The BJP chief tweeted the video now, to show how Panabaka was playing the double game.
What Somu forgot was that there were many such turncoats in the BJP as well – like Daggubati Purandeshwari, Sujana Chowdary, C M Ramesh, T G Venkatesh… and the list is endless. All of them had criticised the BJP in the past and are now enjoying the patronage of Narendra Modi.
The TDP immediately shot back at the BJP state chief, wondering whether he thought people had the short memory.
Former minister Kothapalli Jawahar questioned Somu whether he should release the videos of Narendra Modi making promises to the people in Tirupati.
“He should explain in what contest Panabaka Lakshmi made the comments. He should also reveal what he had said about Chandrababu Naidu when the latter had nominated him to the state legislative council,” Jawahar said.
Stating that the BJP would not get votes if Somu posts tweets against the TDP.
“He should expect some votes, only if he fights hard against his secret friend and his YSR Congress party,” the TDP leader said.