The Telangana Congress on Friday alleged BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao was holding talks with the BJP to merge his party and that its four Rajya Sabha MPs will soon join the saffron party in the first phase of this union.
With more BRS MLAs on their way to the Congress in the next few days, the BRS top leadership has allegedly turned to the BJP to safeguard their MLAs from the Congress and secure their own political future.
BRS turned Congress MLA Danam Nagender today predicted that the regional party’s MLAs were going to soon join the Congress leading to the merger of the BRS legislative party into the CLP. Seven BRS MLAs have already defected to the Congress beginning with Danam Nagender.
The BRS has approached the Speaker to disqualify them and has even moved the High Court to put pressure on the rebel MLAs. However, they have failed to stem the tide as the BRS MLAs kept quitting the party to join the Congress.
Today Nagender said, “Soon the BRS Legislative party will merge with the Congress. Only four MLAs will be left in that party and others will join the Congress in the next few days.”
The BRS won 39 seats in the Assembly election and at least 26 MLAs will have to join the Congress to effect a merger. It has already lost the Secunderabad Cantonment seat to the Congress in a bypoll.
Criticizing party’s working president K T Rama Rao for running the BRS in corporate style, Nagender said even MLAs failed to get an appointment from party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao. He said while the BRS treated the MLAs like worms, they had freedom in Congress and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was easily accessible.
He also complained that the BRS MLAs did not get funds for developing their constituencies and only constituencies of a few ministers like Sircilla (KTR’s seat) saw development.
“No MLA received Rs 1 crore while work was done in Hyderabad the contractors have not been paid… I had asked for funds for roads for slums in Filmnagar,” he added, explaining why the BRS MLAs were joining the Congress willingly.
Meanwhile, Telangana PCC spokesperson Sama Ram Mohan Reddy alleged that during the recent trip to Delhi, Rama Rao and party leader T Harish Rao held parleys with the BJP’s central leadership for a merger.
“In the first phase, the four Rajya Sabha MPs of the BRS will merge with the BJP. The BRS is nose diving at a rocket speed. In order to safeguard their MLAs, and themselves from investigations and also to secure their own political future, KCR and KTR are going to merge their party with the BJP,” said Reddy to The Statesman.
The Kalvakuntla family was also under tremendous pressure with daughter Kavitha still in jail, having failed to secure a bail since her arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 15 March in connection with the Delhi liquor scam case.
KCR himself is also under the scanner over the alleged irregularities in the power purchase agreements (PPA) entered by the state during his tenure as chief minister.