Another blow to BRS as Chevella MLA Kale Yadaiah joins Cong

Hyderabad: In yet another setback for the BRS party, the three-time Chevella MLA Kale Yadaiah joined the Congress party in the presence of AICC leader and state in-charge Deepa Dash Munshi in New Delhi on Friday.

The Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy offered Yadaiah the party scarf formally welcoming him into the party. This is the fifth MLA of the BRS who has deserted the party and joined the Congress. Earlier, the MLAs like Danam Nagender from Khairatabad, T Venkat Rao from Bhadrachalam, Kadiyam Srihari from Station Ghanpur had joined the party before the Lok Sabha elections. Later, senior MLA Pocharam Srinivas Reddy had also joined the party recently and now Yadaiah is the fifth such MLA to shift to Congress party.

The BRS which had strength of 39 in the Assembly has now come down to 33 by virtue of defections of six MLAs and one with the loss of the party in Cantonment bypolls. Whereas the Congress has reached 70 in the 119-member House. Yadaiah has started his career from the Congress party as MPP and ZPTC. He had contested unsuccessfully from Chevella in 2009 losing to KS Ratnam of TDP. He again contested against the same member in 2004 on a BRS ticket and won with a majority of 781 votes. In the 2018 elections he won with a majority of 33,552 votes and again in 2023, he won with a majority of just 268 votes.