Is former Union minister and actor U.V. Krishnam Raju going to get back to active politics? Sources in the BJP here are saying yes.
A senior BJP leader told The Hindu on condition of anonymity that Mr. Krishnam Raju is eying a nominated post. Confirming this, another leader suspected that his chances of getting a plum post are not bright because of his frequent change of loyalties. Mr. Krishnam Raju was not available for comment.
Kakinada once provided the platform for this Telugu film hero of yesteryears, and Mr. Krishnam Raju continued to be in regular touch with political leaders here. His meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi on Sunday was not just to promote his nephew Prabhas’s new film Bahubali , but also to project his candidature for a nominated post in the party, sources said.
Born and brought up at Mogalturu in West Godavari district, Mr. Krishnam Raju entered the political arena from Narasapuram parliamentary constituency on a Congress ticket in the general elections in 1992. Denied success then, he joined the BJP and contested the Kakinada parliamentary constituency in the general elections in 1998. With support from the prominent Kapu leader Mudragada Padmanabham, Mr. Raju won the election by a thumping majority of 1.65 lakh votes.
That victory put him in the good books of the party leadership. In the general election held the very next year, he won the Parliament seat from Narasapuram and became the Union minister for external affairs.
But when his silver screen colleague Chiranjeevi launched the Praja Rajyam Party, Mr. Raju joined the outfit and contested the Rajahmundry Lok Sabha seat in 2009. He lost and went into hibernation till the 2014 general elections, when he tried to contest from the BJP but was not given the ticket. Since then he had been in hibernation.
