Till recently it was rumoured that former APCC chief Neelakantham Raghuveera Reddy will join the BJP. His religiosity, spirituality and proximity to the politicians in Karnataka were touted as the reason. He had even renovated a couple of temples in his home village. All these were shown as symbols of his moving close to the BJP.

However, now it turns out that Raghuveera Reddy is inching closer to the ruling YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh. If sources are to be believed, two of his friends in the YSRCP are bringing pressure on him to join the YSRCP. In fact, several of his former Congress friends are already in the YSRCP and they too want him in the YSRCP.

MLC Tippeswamy is considered very close to Raghuveera. Raghuveera helped him during his MLC election. Not just that, Tippeswamy sought Raghuveera’s blessings before launching the campaign for the recent panchayat and ZPTC elections in Anantapur. Similarly, MLA Ananta Venkatrami Reddy too is considered very close to Raghuveera. He recently met Raghuveera and requested him to join the YSRCP. Several leaders like Botsa Satyanarayana too are considered very close to Raghuveera. In fact, even Jagan respects Raghuveera a lot.

Raghuveera is an MLA from 1989 and has lost only in 2014 and 2019. He was the APCC chief from 2014 to 2020. At one stage, he was considered a possible CM in the wake of the unfortunate death of YSRCP. However, in the later developments, Raghuveera remained in the Congress and suffered a massive defeat as the Congress was totally rejected by the voters in 2014. Now with the reports of his inching closer to the YSRCP, hopes of a revival of his political fortunes are being rekindled.