The Opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Nellore district received a shot in the arm on June 10 (Saturday), when suspended YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader and Venkatagiri MLA Anam Ramanarayana Reddy announced his decision to join the party.
Addressing the media here along with TDP Polit Bureau member Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy, Mr. Ramanarayana Reddy vowed to make TDP national general secretary N. Lokesh’s Nellore leg of the Yuva Galam padayatra a success.
Mr. Ramanarayana Reddy had been suspended from the YSRCP along with two other MLAs from the undivided Nellore district, Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy and Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy, for alleged cross-voting in the MLC elections under the MLA quota.
‘’After completion of the walkathon in the district, I will call on TDP national president and former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu at Amaravati, and formally join the TDP,” Mr. Ramanarayana Reddy said.
Meanwhile, senior TDP leader N. Amarnath Reddy had a meeting with Mr. Sridhar Reddy and discussed the arrangements to be made for the padayatra.
Mr. Sirdhar Reddy had extended his support to the padayatra, and emphasised the need for showing the door to the YSRCP government, which had “failed to meet the expectations of all sections of people.”
Mr. Sridhar Reddy, whose brother Giridhar Reddy had already joined the TDP, said he would take the TDP membership during Mr. Lokesh’s walkathon in Nellore district.
Phone tapping charges
Both Mr. Ramanarayana Reddy and Mr. Sridhar Reddy had alleged tapping of their phones at the behest of leadership that led to their suspension from the YSRCP, which was in an unenvious position in the wake of three of its MLAs raising the banner of revolt in the district where it had bagged all the 10 seats in 2019 Assembly elections.
Mr. Chandrasekhar Reddy, the MLA from Udayagiri, also vowed to work for the TDP’s victory in the Assembly elections in 2024.
Mr. Ramanarayana Reddy, former I&PR Minister in the Cabinet of Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, had elt humiliated when Nedrumalli Ram Kumar Reddy was appointed the party in-charge of Venkatagiri and projected as the party candidate for the elections after he openly criticised the functioning of the YSRCP government on various occasions and predicted a rout for the “anti-people” YSRCP in the next elections.
Vast experience
A senior Minister in the Congress governments between 2004 and 2014, Mr. Ramanarayana Reddy was upset over his non-inclusion in the Cabinet by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2019 and again during the revamp in April last year.
He had good understanding with top leaders in the TDP, which he had represented twice in the Assembly. He was Roads and Buildings Minister in former Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao’s cabinet. He had re-joined the TDP after quitting the Congress in the wake of bifurcation along with his late brother Vivekananda Reddy. He had handled several key portfolios, including Finance and Municipal Administration, in the past.
