A day of twists and turns in Krishna

• Political developments beat summer heat
• Congress MLA Vellampalli joins BJP
• TD cadre holds protests; one even attempts self-immolation against BJP alliance
• Kesineni supporters protest
• Perni Nani goes into hiding; Kodali brings him out
• TDP leader skips late entry into BJP

Vijayawada: It was a day of twists and turns in Krishna district politics on Monday. Almost all major parties suffered a setback for one reason or the other.

There was unrest among the leaders and cadre of the Telugu Desam Party throughout the day and several activists held protests while a couple of them made self-immolation bids. The decision of the party leadership in allocating Vijayawada West and Kaikaluru Assembly segments to the BJP came as a rude shock for them. The Muslim activists of the TDP condemned the decision and demanded that the party revert the decision and find another segment for the BJP. The morale of the cadre in the two segments was down as the BJP’s presence there, according to them, was insignificant.

The unrest was more visible at the Kesineni Srinivas office with his supporters holding protests every hour as news kept changing on the party’s decision to drop him from the Vijayawada Lok Sabha constituency race. They resorted to sloganeering every time there was news of the party considering the names of Potluri Vara Prasad, Koneru Satyanarayana and Komati Jairam for the Vijayawada LS seat and asking Kesineni to shift to the Penamaluru Assembly segment.

The beleaguered Congress suffered a setback when its sitting MLA Vellamapalli Srinivas quit the party in the last minute. The party high command had cleared Vellampalli’s name only on Sunday night and his exit came as a shock to the Congress leaders here. The leader had a herculean task to find an alternative to Vellampalli for the Vijayawada West segment and sent the names to the high command by evening.

The YSR Congress Party too had its share of salt and pepper for the day’s heat. Its senior leader and former legislator from Machilipatnam Perni Venkatramaiah (Nani) played hide and seek with the party and his supporters. There was hullabaloo in the segment until Kodali Nani entered the scene and traced him in Hyderabad. He also held discussions with Perni after the latter had returned and put an end to the high drama.

The day was also bitter for the BJP, which anticipated joining of the former TDP leader from the neighbouring Narasaraopet Assembly segment, which was allotted to the party. The party leaders had made all arrangements in the party office to receive TDP leader Nalabothu Venkatrao. However, the TDP leader disappointed the BJP bosses by skipping the visit, raising tempers.