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The Hindu
The Hindu
National
R. Ravikanth Reddy

Is Congress ‘wooing’ Keshava Rao?

As the flow of leaders from BRS into the Congress and BJP continues, a senior Parliamentarian close to BRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao is also considering a shift to his original party.

Though it is not yet confirmed, the Congress leadership is said to have convinced BRS member of Rajya Sabha K. Keshava Rao to come back home. Though there is no confirmation so far from him, rumours are strong that he might shift.

On a day when BRS MPs met in New Delhi to take stock of MLC K. Kavitha’s arrest, Mr. Keshava Rao was in Hyderabad when Congress leaders met his daughter and GHMC Mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi. Mr. Keshava Rao too was part of the discussions, sources said.

Sources added that Mr. Keshava Rao recalled the respect he enjoyed in the Congress during his long association with the party and the lack of respect in the BRS despite the party making him Secretary General and also nominating him twice to the Rajya Sabha.

He is said to have told the Congress delegation consisting of AICC in-charge Deepa Dasmunsi, adviser to government Vem Narender Reddy and Khairatabad DCC president Rohin Reddy that miffed with “lack of respect”, senior BRS leaders were looking towards the Congress or BJP, as the Parliament elections throw up a scenario where BRS fortunes comparatively look weaker.

For the kind of freedom he enjoyed in the Congress as a Minister and as PCC president, he is feeling stifled in the BRS where only KCR’s family calls the shots, a senior leader claimed. “We have invited him to the Congress where he was shaped as a politician and became a voice for the weaker sections,” he revealed.

Mr. Keshava Rao, a former PCC president in united Andhra Pradesh and a strong proponent of Telangana State, was sent to Rajya Sabha in 2006 by the Congress. He joined the TRS (now BRS) and was elected to RS in 2014 and for the second time in 2020.

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