A beleaguered Congress in Telangana has suffered a setback on Wednesday with a senior leader and a two-time APCC chief D Srinivas quitting the party and joining the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS.)
Srinivas (66) a stalwart from Nizamabad district headed combined Andhra Pradesh unit in 2004 and 2009 leading the party to victory in Assembly elections. The former Minister with a four decade long association with Congress was said to be sulking after the party refused to re-nominate him to the Telangana Legislative Council recently under the Local Bodies’ quota.
Capping weeks of speculation over his next political move, the disgruntled veteran called on the TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao at the latter’s camp office here on Wednesday and conveyed his decision to leave Congress and join the ruling party. Srinivas, a former Minister, enjoyed close rapport with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Vice-president Rahul Gandhi. He provided crucial inputs to the party high command at the height of the Telangana statehood movement.
Srinivas hails from Nizamabad district where TRS swept the polls last year, bagging all the nine assembly seats. He himself was defeated in Nizamabad rural constituency. This was his third straight defeat a having lost in the 2009 general electionWhat reportedly peeved the senior leader was the fact that the Congress leadership did not consult him before nominating a junior leader from the same district A Lalitha for the MLC seat that was vacated by him.