BRS tries all out to entice irate Congress lawmakers

In response to the Congress party’s recent victories against its leaders, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is striking back by enticing unhappy opposition politicians into its fold.

The governing party is using the fact that senior and devoted leaders are enraged by the Congress’s allocation of tickets to defectors.

The BRS leadership doesn’t waste any time in contacting and encouraging important Congressmen to join the governing party when they step down. The BRS is benefiting from this tactic, since these leaders’ supporters are likewise abandoning their particular areas. This should strengthen the BRS’s standing before the election on November 30.

This attempt to entice unhappy Congress politicians to their camps is being directly spearheaded by BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao and senior leader T. Harish Rao. The politicians are then being invited to meet with K. Chandrasekhar Rao, the Chief Minister and President of the BRS.

Soon after the Congress leaders quit the party, both major leaders individually went to their homes, having succeeded in regaining the support of people who had defected from TRS (now BRS) during the Telangana agitation.

BRS is guaranteeing these leaders that they will be placed in appropriate roles in the future, as the party has already declared candidates for almost all 119 seats.

KTR promptly went to the home of senior politician and former minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah to extend an invitation for him to join the party after he resigned from the Congress due to allegations of humiliation of leaders of the Backward Classes inside the party.

When it became apparent that the Congress would not run him from the Jangaon seat, Ponnala, the former president of the Telangana Congress, decided to sever his 40-year affiliation with the party. He said in his letter of resignation that the leaders of the Backward Caste in the party had been humiliated when they had traveled to Delhi to meet with the central leaders and demanded that BCs get an equitable number of seats.

Later, Ponnala enlisted in the BRS when KCR was present. Using this defection as leverage, the governing party attacked Congress for how it was seen to be handling its BC leaders.

When former minister Nagam Janardhan Reddy resigned from the Congress on October 29 due to not receiving a ticket from the Nagarkurnool seat, KTR and Harish went to his residence right away and extended an invitation for him to join BRS. Marri Janardhan Reddy, a BRS candidate from the seat, joined them and expressed to the senior leader his father-like respect. Once a fierce opponent of KCR, Nagam accepted an invitation to meet the actor.

Six-time MLA Nagam became infuriated when K. Rajesh Reddy, the son of BRS MLC K. Damodar Reddy, was fielded by the Congress. Rajesh just joined the Congress party.

Prior to the 2018 elections, Nagam, one of the last notable members of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Telangana, joined the Congress. The former, a five-term elected official from Nagarkurnool, was defeated by BRS contender Marri Janardhan Reddy in the 2018 election.

The resignation of P. Vishnuwardhan Reddy, a former MLA from the Congress, presented BRS with an additional chance to strengthen its membership. After being refused a ticket from Hyderabad’s Jubilee Hills seat, he hoisted the flag of insurrection. Mohammed Azharuddin, a former Indian cricket captain, was fielded for the Congress.

In unified Andhra Pradesh, Harish Rao visited the home of Vishnuvardhan Reddy, the late P. Janardhan Reddy’s son and the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader from 1994 to 1999. Janardhan Reddy, also known as PJR, was summoned back to work by the BRS, which also assured Vishnuvardhan Reddy of a suitable position inside the party.

The youthful leader, who is well-liked in the constituency, made the decision to join BRS after meeting KCR.

Following the death of his father in 2008, Vishnuvardhan Reddy was first elected to the Assembly from the Khairatabad seat. Although he was elected in 2009 from Jubilee Hills, he was not successful in the elections held in 2014 and 2018.

Shaik Abdullah Sohail, a prominent Muslim, was also persuaded to join the BRS after he left Congress. On October 28, he tendered his resignation as the chairman of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee’s (TPCC) minority department, citing the “sale” of tickets and the communalization of the party under A. Revanth Reddy’s leadership—a figurehead he referred to as having RSS ancestry.

In a scathing letter, Sohail informed AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge of his intention to end his 34-year affiliation with the party. Dasoju Srravan, the head of BRS, went to Sohail’s residence shortly after he resigned and extended an invitation for him to join. On October 30, he became an official member of the group.