The meeting of four BRS MLAs with Chief Minister Revanth Reddy recently, has stirred a hornet’s nest about the possible ‘entry’ of several BRS MLAs into the Congress. However, the ruling party seems to be in no hurry to admit anyone as of now.
On Sunday, another BRS MLA Prakash Goud from Rajendra Nagar constituency met the Chief Minister, along with adviser to Chief Minister Vem Narender Reddy. He too, adopted the same line that the four other MLAs did of not saying anything political about the meeting and called it related to developmental activities of his constituency.
Mr. Goud was in Telugu Desam Party (TDP) along with Mr. Revanth Reddy and Mr. Vem Narender Reddy before he moved to the TRS in 2014 with other TDP MLAs.
The other BRS MLAs, Sunitha Laxma Reddy from Narsapur, Kotha Prabhakar Reddy of Dubbak, Gudem Mahipal Reddy of Patancheru and Manik Rao from Zaheerabad, surprised everyone when they met Mr. Revanth Reddy a few days back.
Why the four MLAs from Medak were picked up is playing on everyone’s mind. Sources in the Congress said that several BRS MLAs have sent feelers but these four were picked up to meet the CM to “rattle the BRS leadership” that considers Medak as their citadel.
In fact, Medak is considered the most safe seat for BRS in the Parliament elections if at all the party wants its chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao to contest as an MP. “We have sent a message that we can intrude into the strongest base of the BRS easily and we did,” a senior Congress Minister admitted.
Despite the strong rumours of some MLAs deserting the BRS, this could be only after the elections. Till then, MLAs sending feelers to Congress are being asked to lie low during the election campaign. Apparently, Congress doesn’t want to be associated with criticism of encouraging defections like the BRS did.