Giving a rude shock to Telugu Desam Party president Chandrababu Naidu, just a week after the GHMC defeat, senior MLAs- Errabelli Dayakar Rao and Prakash Goud joined the ruling TRS party late last night. Once a strongman of the party and virulent critic of chief minister Chandrasekhar Rao, Errabelli Dayakar Rao joined the ruling party in a sudden and dramatic development. While party president Chandrababu Naidu was reviewing the party affairs at Vijayawada, here at Hyderabad the coup was plotted.
The GHMC seems to have triggered a chain reaction. The huge mandate in the GHMC has created a scare among the TDP leaders that they would meet the same fate if they continued in the TDP till 2019 election. All MLAs jostling to join the TRS.
Telangana irrigation minister T Harish Rao played key role in bringing the TDP floor leader into the fold of the pink party. Immediately after a public meeting at Narayankhed yesterday for which a bypoll is conducted, Harish reached the MLA quarters to meet Dayakar Rao and another TDP MLA Prakash Goud from Rajendra Nagar. Harishrao took them to chief minister KCR’s camp office where the CM offered them pink kanduva, an euphemism for joining the party. With these two MLAs joining, the ruling party needs only one TDP MLA, to submit a letter to the Legislative Assembly Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary stating that they split away from the TDP and be recognized as separate group to avoid the disqualification.
TDP MLAs who joined the TRS in the past: Talasani Srinivas Yadav (Sanath Nagar), Theegala Krishna Reddy (Maheshwaram), G Sayanna (Secunderabad Cantonment), Manchi Reddy Kishan Reddy (Ibrahim Patnam), Challa Dharma Reddy (Parkal), KP Vivekananda (Kuthbullapur), Madhavaram Krishna Rao (Kukatpally).
Telugu Desam party had a strength of 15 MLAs in Assembly immediately after 2014 elections. Of the remaing MLAs, R Krishnaiah (LB Nagar), yesterday clarified that he had nothing to do with TDP. Now,the party has got reduced to a small group of five- Maganti Gopinath (Jubilee Hills), Arikepudi Gandhi (Sherilingampally), Rajender Reddy (Narayanapet), A Revanth Reddy (Kodangal), Sandra Venkata Veeraiah (Sathupally).
It’s only a matter of time for the other TDP MLAs to quit the party.
