Adding to the woes of the Congress party in the State, two key leaders, a former MP from Telangana and a former MLA from Andhra, are quitting the party.
While former Adilabad MP A. Indrakaran Reddy is to quit the party on May 2 along with a number of his supporters, former Vijayawada East MLA Vangaveeti Radhakrishna, son of former MLA V. Ratnakumari and assassinated Congress leader V. Mohana Ranga Rao, has declared that he will be joining the YSR Congress Party on April 27.
Indrakaran Reddy resents the growing stature of Nirmal MLA A. Maheshwar Reddy following the merger of Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party.
He has not announced which party he will join after he, along with former Sirpur MLA Koneru Konappa and 3,000 supporters from Nirmal, quits the Congress.
The former Congress MLA from Vijayawada East announced at a press conference on Thursday that he had already talked to Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, and the YSR Congress Party president had offered to visit Vijayawada to participate in a public meeting organised for the purpose.
Mr. Radhakrishna said that the Congress leaders were trying to demean former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy exactly like they had demeaned his father Mohana Ranga Rao.
“My father sacrificed his life for the Congress party and his death put a break to the Telugu Desam wave in the State.
Many senior leaders owed their return to power to the sacrifice of my father, but they began denigrating his image,” he lamented.
Mr. Radhakrishna claimed that his father's influence was not limited to just Vijayawada or Krishna district and said that he would be going to Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, East and West Godavari districts to garner support of his father's well-wishers from all communities.
