Revanth rift deepens

Hyderabad: The crisis in Telangana TDP unit appears to be deepening day after day. The T unit appears to be in for a major tsunami as the party working president A Revanth Reddy has not only decided to switch loyalties to Congress but has also submitted a list of names of nearly 20 leaders who were willing to go with him. It also appears that the initial resistance within Congress to Revanth’s entry has subsided following the intervention of AICC in-charge of Telangana R C Kunthia.

Revanth may agree to stay back in the party if TDP national president N Chandrababu Naidu agrees for an alliance with the Congress party in Telangana, according to a section of TDP leaders close to Revanth. But political analysts aver that there was not even a remote possibility of Naidu accepting such a condition.

The TDP since its inception has always considered Congress party as its main rival. Moreover, any such move in Telangana would give a powerful missile to the opposition parties in Andhra Pradesh particularly the YSRCP which the TDP cannot afford.

In the back drop of this situation after consulting the top leadership of the party, the Telangana TDP is understood to have adopted a ‘secret’ resolution demanding expulsion of Revanth from the party for indulging in anti-party activities. The resolution it is said has been moved at party politburo meeting by state president L Ramana on Friday. The resolution, according to top party leaders, would be submitted to Naidu soon after his foreign tour.

In the meantime, as part of damage control exercise, Ramana along with senior leaders Mothkupalli Narasimhulu and E Peddi Reddy demanded that Revanth should make public the list which he purportedly submitted to Rahul Gandhi during his meeting in New Delhi. He called upon the rank and file not to fall prey to the machinations of Revanth.

According to sources, the list submitted to Rahul Gandhi contains names of senior leaders like Seethakka, K Dayakar Reddy, Ch Vijayarama Rao, Bhoopal Reddy, Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, A Narsa Reddy, Rajaram Yadav, E Peddi Reddy, M Satyam, G Srikanth Goud and others.

Majority of the leaders whose names figured in the list have at least for the present denied that they were joining Congress. M Satyam and Srikanth Goud, who are said to be close to Revanth, were among the few who said that people want them to join Congress and hence they were going with him.

Interestingly, another senior leader Motkupalli Narsimhulu while lashing at Revanth stated that he would continue in TDP with his demand for an alliance with TRS in 2019 elections. It now remains to be seen if this issue could brew into another storm in TDP as Naidu was emphatic during his last meeting with TTDP leaders that there was no question of any alliance with TRS which is responsible for destroying the yellow party here.