What’s cooking in Delhi? Cong smells cosying up of BJP, BRS

Hyderabad: Even as the praises for senior BRS leader T Harish Rao by Union Minister of State Bandi Sanjay raised eyebrows, the Congress found this to be the result of ongoing negotiations of merger of BRS into BJP and the recent visit of pink party’s top leaders to Delhi.

During an informal media interaction, PCC campaign committee chairman Madhu Yashki emphasised that the entire family of former CM K Chandrasekhar Rao were trying their best for the release of MLC K Kavitha who was arrested in the alleged liquor scam, even if it means merger of the BRS into BJP. As part of this, negotiations continued in Delhi till recently and both former Ministers KT Rama Rao and T Harish Rao were in the national capital to discuss the feasibility of such a move. The showering of praises by Bandi Sanjay on Sunday was the result of these deliberations between BRS and BJP leadership, said Madhu Yashki. He said that the KCR made all out efforts for the merger of the party, but Union Minister G Kishan Reddy was against such a decision. Interestingly, Bandi was supportive of this, hence lauded Harish Rao and also welcomed him into the BJP fold after resigning as MLA.

Madhu Yashki, one of the top aspirants for the PCC president’s post refuted that there were discussions with AICC top brass in Delhi regarding the next PCC chief’s appointment, but rather said the deliberations were more focused on Cabinet expansion in Telangana and the allocations of portfolios. Even amongst the existing Ministers some of them also had placed grievances regarding present portfolios. He also ruled out that the AICC leadership had any say regarding the nominated posts and clarified that besides Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, Ministers D Sridhar Babu and N Uttam Kumar Reddy took a call over the fresh list of nominated posts. He clarified that the latest wave of joinings from BRS has the blessings from the party’s High Command.