Hyderabad: The simmering differences between Telangana TD Legislature Party leader Errabelli Dayakar Rao and the party’s newly-appointed working president A. Revanth Reddy are likely to dominate the agenda when TD national president and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu takes stock of the preparations for the Warangal bypoll, in Vijayawada on Monday.
The two TS TD leaders have been avoiding meeting each other for the past five months, except on a few occasions. While Mr Reddy suspects Mr Rao of ‘leaking’ information of his meeting with nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson to some powerful TRS leaders, that ultimately resulted in him being caught red-handed in the cash-for-vote episode, Mr Rao suspects Mr Reddy of spreading rumours like he would join the TRS after he met TS Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao one night.
On Sunday, Mr Rao denied a report appearing in a section of the media which quoted him as saying the BJP should be given the Warangal Lok Sabha seat, keeping the coalition dharma in view. This statement was allegedly made during a joint meeting of TD-BJP leaders held in a star hotel on Saturday.
Mr Rao suspects Mr Reddy is planting such stories. It is a fact that Mr Rao had skipped the swearing-in ceremony of the newly constituted TD committees at the NTR Trust Bhavan, mainly as he was not keen on witnessing Mr Reddy taking over the party’s working president post.
In a tit-for-tat move, Mr Reddy avoided attending the recently-held Assembly session stating his brother had expired and he had to perform rituals for 10 days. He attended the Assembly only when the entire Opposition was suspended for the rest of the session.
Feelings are that Mr Reddy’s game plan is to develop a strong anti-KCR vote bank backed by Reddys and BCs, as he thinks there is no point in pampering the Velamas to which the TS CM and Mr Rao belong.
There were several occasions Mr Reddy had called the Velama community “dora” and fired salvos, forcing Mr Rao to complain to Mr Naidu against this each time he did so.
Meanwhile, Mr Reddy on Sunday requested TS TD president L. Ramana to get the meeting with Mr Naidu scheduled for Monday postponed to some other day, as he needs to report himself to t he ACB court in the cash-for-vote case the same day.
