Balineni resigns from YSRCP

Ongole : In a huge blow to the YSRCP, former minister, a staunch loyalist of YSR family and the face of the party in Prakasam district, Balineni Srinivasa Reddy, resigned from the party on Wednesday. He sent his resignation from the primary membership of the party to party president and former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

He is expected to meet the Jana Sena Party president and Deputy Chief Minister,K Pawan Kalyan at his party office on Thursday, and may be appointed as the regional in-charge for the Prakasam, Guntur and the Nellore districts.

His decision to quit came at a time when Y S Jaganmohan Reddy was holding a meeting with his party leaders at Tadepalli.

Srinivasa Reddy said there were many reasons for his decision to quit the party but for now he would only say that neither Jagan’s attitude had changed nor his language had changed even after getting decimated in elections. He said that he believes in a respectable language in politics, and the politicians should honour the values in the system.

He said since he was related to Jagan many a time he pointed that the decisions being taken by Jagan were wrong but he did not listen and on the other hand, developed negative opinion about him. The last straw was the refusal to give Lok Sabha ticket to Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy and bringing an outsider Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy and projecting him as a big leader.

Srinivasa Reddy is a close relative of the YS Rajasekhara Reddy family through Y V Subba Reddy. Subba Reddy is the brother of Balineni’s wife, Sachidevi. He got elected to Assembly in 1999 from Ongole and was re-elected in 2004, 2009 and in 2012 by elections on Congress ticket.

After joining YSRCP he was elected from Ongole in 2019. He served as a minister in the Rajasekhara Reddy and Jagans Cabinet.

Srinivasa Reddy’s rift with Jagan started after the reshuffling of Cabinet in 2022. He wanted Cabinet berth from Prakasam district to himself, while Jagan Mohan Reddy decided to offer it to Audimulapu Suresh. Since then, the relationship between him and Jagan Mohan Reddy began to deteriorate.

The differences with Subba Reddy also further distanced Srinviasa Reddy from Jagan Mohan Reddy. Srinivasa Reddy himself claimed several times that his own people are targeting him, and the party is not offering any support to him in the matters it should do.

In his resignation letter sent to the party president, Srinivasa Reddy claimed that he is proud of practising politics for the welfare of the people, and is humble enough to appreciate those who lead the state into development.