Municipal Administration and IT Minister K T Rama Rao, who is also the working president of the ruling TRS, tried to sort out the differences among some of the party senior leaders in the composite Khammam district to forge unity among them ahead of the Assembly polls due in December next year, by holding a meeting with key leaders of the TRS during his visit to Khammam on Saturday.
The meeting assumed significance amid simmering group rivalry within the ruling party in nearly eight of the total 10 Assembly constituencies in the erstwhile composite Khammam district.
The internal squabbles cost the TRS dearly in the 2018 Assembly elections, in which the party had won only one out of the ten Assembly seats in Khammam and Bhadradri-Kothagudem districts put together.
During his nearly six-hour visit to the fort city, the minister inaugurated the cable stayed suspension bridge and a musical fountain at Lakaram tank bund, the new office building of Khammam Municipal Corporation, and 240 double bedroom dwelling units at Tekulapally, among other facilities.
He addressed a public meeting at Sardar Patel stadium here after participating in a string of Pattana Pragathi-related programmes.
Mr Rama Rao held a meeting with the top and middle-rung leaders of the TRS at the party district office before winding up his visit late in the afternoon.
Almost all the senior leaders of the party including Khammam MP and TRS floor leader in Lok Sabha Nama Nageswara Rao, Transport Minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar, the former Khammam MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, the former minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, the Government Whip Rega Kantha Rao, a host of MLAs and former MLAs attended the meeting, sources said.
Mr Rama Rao is understood to have exhorted the party leaders to work together to highlight the development endeavour of the TRS government and strive to ensure landslide victory for the party in all the ten Assembly seats in the old undivided Khammam district in the next Assembly elections.
Earlier in the day, Mr Rama Rao had lunch at Mr Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy’s residence along with Mr Ajay Kumar, Mr Nama Nageswara Rao and others.
