Hyderabad: In order to strengthen its base in TS organisationally and politically, the TS BJP has started consultations with several former ministers of the Congress and TD.
If all goes well, these former ministers may be inducted into the party with an assurance that they will be offered tickets to various Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies. The TS BJP already admitted former Congress MLA Nandiswar Goud into the party on Monday. According to BJP sources, Mr Goud will be fielded from Medak Lok Sabha seat.
Jalagam Prasada Rao, former Congress minister and son of former Chief Minister Jalagam Vengal Rao, is also on the TS BJP’s radar, the sources said. Most likely, he would be welcomed to the BJP fold in the presence of BJP national president Amit Shah during his tour of Telangana in the last week of May.
Sources said he will be the candidate of BJP from Khammam LS seat. “Several leaders from various parties are in touch with us and we will only take those useful to the party,” said BJP spokesperson K. Raghunandana Rao.
He said he cannot disclose the names of the leaders from other parties joining the BJP but did say: “In the coming days, you will witness a lot of ‘big leaders’ joining us.”
BJP: MIM is an ‘OLD City’ party, we rule all India
As part of its expansion plans in the state, TS BJP continued to target the MIM saying while the BJP was a national party, the MIM remains an “Old City party.”
BJP spokesman Krishna Saagar Rao said the party will strengthen its base in the entire TS, including Hyderabad.
“We will win Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat in 2019. Old City of Hyderabad has been neglected over the years. Only the Owaisi family developed in the Old City,” he alleged.
He was reacting to MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi’s comments against Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and his allegation that the BJP was keeping the communal pot boiling.
“It’s a joke. His comments are inappropriate and show his political bankruptcy. Asad is labelling the BJP ‘communal’ but MIM’s name itself is communal, while the BJP is a nationalistic party,” Mr Rao said.
He said that the MIM has one Lok Sabha and seven Assembly seats while BJP rules India.
