Former Minister in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and former BJP State unit president Kanna Lakshminarayana, who quit the BJP recently, is going to join the TDP in the presence of the party president Nara Chandrababu Naidu on February 23.
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On Thursday, he will go in a rally from his house in Guntur to the TDP headquarters at Mangalagiri in a convoy of more than 500 cars and hundreds of two-wheelers. The procession will commence at 2.30 p.m. in which thousands of followers are expected to participate in a show of strength.
After resigning from the primary membership of the BJP, Mr. Kanna held a crucial meeting with more than 150 leaders from Guntur city, Pedakurapadu, Sattenapalli, Narasaraopet and other Assembly constituencies where various options were discussed, but the majority view, it is learnt, was that he should join the TDP.
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‘Jagan ruining State’
“The cadre opined that it is an urgent need to defeat the YSR Congress Party in the ensuing general elections, as the Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has been ruining the State for the past four years. We have decided to save Andhra Pradesh from the autocratic and anarchic rule of Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy,” Mr. Kanna told The Hindu.
The present Chief Minister took many catastrophic decisions, including the one to shift capital from Amaravati, where more than 30,000 farmers gave away their lands through a proper agreement to the State government, he said. “There is no meaning in changing the capital every time a new Chief Minister takes power. Parliament has mandated the State to have a capital through the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 and based on that already we have established it in Amaravati. There ended the matter, but now the Chief Minister is reversing it,” he said.
Mr. Kanna maintained that the YSRCP government utterly failed in undertaking any developmental activities across the State. There is no tangible development even in Vizag in the last four years,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kanna is learnt to have received calls from the BJP high command and other senior leaders requesting him to stay back in the party and trying to give assurances.
The sources in his core group said that when he conveyed his discontent to the party high command, they failed to act for almost three and a half weeks. After he sent the resignation letter, they started negotiating, but it was too late as he had made up his mind.