Telugu Desam Party appears to be heading for a split in Vijayawada with the BC and minority leaders raising a banner of revolt against the domination of Kamma leaders in the party.
Senior TDP leader and Vijayawada (urban) TDP president Bonda Uma and minority leader Nagul Meera are fuming at the highhanded attitude of Vijayawada MP Kesineni Nani for hijacking the party, ignoring the genuine party workers who have been striving for the party for decades.
They also expressed dissatisfaction over party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu for giving importance only to those belonging to Kamma community. They, however, blamed it on Kesineni for misleading the TDP chief.
The Bonda Uma group has been at loggerheads with Kesineni for quite some time over the selection of candidates to a few divisions and also Mayoral candidate.
Though Naidu and state TDP chief K Atchan Naidu managed to pacify them, the rumblings continue to rock the party in Vijayawada.
Both Bonda Uma and Nagul Meera are unhappy with Naidu for giving too much importance to Kesineni. Though they proposed that a BC or Kapu leader be declared as Mayoral candidate for Vijayawada municipal corporation elections, Naidu succumbed to Kesineni’s pressure and finalised his daughter Kesineni Swetha as the Mayor candidate.
This led to a lot of unrest in the party. The rival group leaders who met at the residence of Bonda Uma on Saturday, alleged that Kesineni has converted the Vijayawada TDP into a Kamma Sangham.
They also fired at Kesineni for changing the route map of Naidu’s election campaign in Vijayawada without even informing the Vijayawada Urban TDP unit. They declared that they would not be part of Naidu’s campaign, if Kesineni takes part in it.