Rajampet a challenge, says Daggubati Purandeswari

 

When contacted, Ms Purandeswari said, “I will take it as a challenge and prove myself.”

 

The BJP also let down industrialist Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, a relative of Congress MP K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, who had migrated from the YSRC. Mr Gokaraju Ganga Raju, another industrialist who had joined the party recently, got the Lok Sabha ticket from Narsapuram. 

 

Sources said Ms Purandeswari had been told when she had joined the party that the Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha seat was not negotiable as the party leadership had more or less decided on giving it to BJP Seemandhra president Kambhampati Hari-babu, a former MLA. 

 

Unfortunately for Ms Purandeswari, the other constituencies that she was eyeing, like Rajahmundry, Vijayawada, Guntur, Narasaraopet and Ongole, went to the TD in the seat-sharing formula.

 

Sources close to Ms Purandeswari say that she felt seriously let down as the state BJP leadership did not insist on more Lok Sabha constituencies, knowing fully well the machinations of Mr Naidu, who was bent upon snubbing her politically.

 

Her fears came true when the BJP was allotted five Lok Sabha seats  isakhapatnam, Araku, Narsapuram, Tirupati and Rajampet; of these the party surrendered Araku to the TD as it did not have a strong candidate from the reserved constituency. 

 

When asked, a close aide of BJP national leader Venkaiah Naidu said, “At the time of joining the party we had told her not to eye Visakhapatnam as it was almost reserved for Mr Haribabu. She said that she could move to any other constituency; this was before we entered into a poll alliance with the Telugu Desam. After the alliance, we got only four Lok Sabha seats, what can we do now?”

 

A key leader who participated in the seat-sharing talks on behalf of the Telugu Desam said, “They (BJP) asked us for Visakhapatnam, we did not object to it and gave it to them. It is for the BJP leadership to decide their candidature, not us.” 

 

However, sources close to the Daggubati couple said that the TD leadership knew from the beginning that Mr Haribabu would be the candidate for BJP from Visakhapatnam. 

 

They say that the leaderships of both parties are hand in glove to see that Ms Purandeswari’s chances of contesting from other constituencies are ruined.

 

“There is a game plan by several leaders from Congress, TD and BJP in fixing us; they seems to be successful to a major extent. When we were looking for Vijayawada, they brought up Pawan Kalyan’s name and told us they needed to accommodate a person suggested by the actor. Then we asked for Guntur but they said that it had gone to Galla Jayadev. When we sought Narasaraopet, they said Rayapati would be joining the party and it would be given to him, finally we said that we would move to Ongole because TD had not finalised a candidate there. But Chandrababu Naidu held talks with Congress MP Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy and he joined the Telugu Desam only a day before his candidature was announced. We see a bigger plan behind all this,” said a key source from the Daggubati family.