The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has demanded that senior Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Errabelli Dayakar Rao resign and contest elections afresh before demanding that others do so too.
Mr. Rao’s remarks – that each of the MLA who won elections on a TDP ticket and later defected to the TRS should get themselves re-elected – came in for condemnation from TRS leaders.
Parkal MLA Ch. Dharma Reddy and TRS district president T. Ravinder Rao said it was Mr. Dayakar Rao who tried jumping ship to the TRS at one point.
As TRS leaders in Warangal were opposed to his entry, he was denied membership.
“Could not stomach Kadiam’s elevation”
He was unable to stomach the elevation of Mr. Kadiam Srihari as deputy chief minister, the TRS leaders said.
“Mr. Dayakar Rao, frustrated upon being denied entry into the TRS, and with his former colleagues being given good positions, is talking nonsense and losing his stature,” Mr. Ravinder Rao said.
The TDP has lost public support in Telangana, but their leaders still claimed a mass base. If they felt so, Mr. Dayakar Rao should resign and seek a fresh mandate, Mr. Ravinder Rao said.
If he does so, the Parkal MLA, who was elected on a TRS ticket, would do the same.
In fact, the TDP was encouraging YSRC MLAs and MPs to join the ruling party in Andhra Pradesh while it was opposed to defections to Telangana’s ruling party, the TRS leaders said.
This amounted to moral bankruptcy, they added.
The TRS leaders also found fault with Mr. Dayakar Rao supporting the striking RTC employees and for blaming TRS for the crisis.
It was the TDP and the Congress that ruled the State and mismanaged and neglected the RTC.
The TRS was aware of the problem and would sort it out soon, they said.
