Hyderabad:Rajampet MP Sai Pratap, one of the six MPs expelled from the party in February, rejoined the Congress on Monday.
Following an invitation from AICC general secretary and state party affairs in-charge, Mr Digvijay Singh, Mr Sai Pratap met the former in New Delhi on Monday.
After his expulsion, Mr Sai Pratap had joined former chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy’s Jai Samaikyandhra party and was appointed the party’s vice-president. And though lately Mr Sai Pratap had been thinking about joining the Telugu Desam, he dropped the idea after the TD left the Rajampet Lok Sabha seat for the BJP.
Meanwhile the Congress high command asked him to return to the party fold. After meeting Mr Digvijay Singh, Mr Sai Pratap told reporters that the Congress had given him tickets eight times and he had been in the party for the past 36 years. The state’s bifurcation had hurt him like other Seemandhra people, he said.
He added that former chief minister Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy’s family had also been in the Congress for 50 years and said that the Congress high command should try and get him back into the party fold too. He also said that he was ready to contest from the Rajampet Lok Sabha seat if the high command asked.
Meanwhile, Malkajgiri Congress MLA Akula Rajendar returned to the Congress two days after leaving and joining the TRS. Mr Rajendar had been declared as the TRS candidate for the Malkajgiri Assembly constituency by party chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao in the first list.
However, the next day, Mr Rajendar told the media that he had received threats from MRPS leader Manda Krishna Madiga and had declared that he would not contest in the forthcoming elections.
Thus on Monday, Mr Rajendar returned to the Congress much to the chagrin of TRS chief. K. Chandasekhar Rao.
Meanwhile, Telugu Desam MLA from Medak Assembly constituency, Mynampalli Hanumantha Rao, who had resigned from the party protesting against allotment of the Malkajgiri Assembly seat to the BJP, joined the Congress on Monday.
Mr Rao met Mr Digvijay Singh along with Telangana PCC president Ponnala Laxmaiah in New Delhi and announced later that he had joined the Congress.
