Denied ticket for Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll, BJP leader joins TRS

Hyderabad: Dejected over denying party ticket for the upcoming Nagarjuna sagar bypoll, Bharatiya Janata Party ticket aspirant Kadari Anjaiah Yadav severed ties with the saffron party and joined its rival ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the presence of party president and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday. It is speculated that Yadav was promised of offering corporation post for switching to TRS.

It can be recalled that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had tactically delayed the announcement of candidate of the party to ensure that party leaders do not jump into other parties. He also promised to offer them MLC posts if they work for the TRS candidate.

Meanwhile, the ruling party MLAs, who have been campaigning in Nagarjunsagar for the last fortnight, were quick to seize the opportunity and got in touch with Anjaiah Yadav after he was denied the ticket. Local legislators S Saidi Reddy, Paila Shekhar Reddy and Ravindra Naik approached Anjaiah and took him to the Chief Minister, who had reportedly promised to give him a chairman post of a corporation. Party leaders said that another BJP leader Nivedita Reddy, who is also unhappy with the saffron party for denying ticket, is also likely to join the TRS. Nivedita Reddy had filed her nomination papers even before the party announced the candidate officially.

Earlier, unhappy with the denial of ticket by the BJP, Anjaiah Yadav had decided to contest as an independent candidate. However, the MLAs contacted him and held discussions with him and persuaded him to join TRS. The BJP gave ticket to P Ravi Kumar Naik.

The TRS chief on Monday had announced the candidature of Nomula Bhagat, son of late MLA Nomula Narasimhaiah for the bypoll, which is slated to be held on April 17. All the candidates of major political parties have filed their nomination papers on Tuesday, the last date for filing nominations. The bypoll is going to witness a high voltage campaign as the TRS chief had hinted that he along with working president KT Rama Rao would campaign. The Congress had already started its campaign with a public meeting on Saturday.