Telangana stir puts TD in the soup
Hyderabad: The Telangana agitation has rendered the Telugu Desam Party Chief Chandrababu Naidu as the worst troubled. The party's strength in the State Assembly has come down from 39 Telangana MLAs to 32 with the resignation of Gampa Govardhan.
With Telangana agitation gaining momentum, several of party's MLAs have quit the party. The migration of MLAs from TDP began with Ch Ramesh who had quit TDP in December 2009 and contested the by-election on TRS ticket and won.
Pocharam Srinivas Reddy resigned in January saying that the two-eyed policy had caused problems for him as he was being branded as anti Telangana and traitor in his constituency.
He later joined TRS and is now contesting the by-election on TRS ticket from Banswada constituency. The TDP has been feeling the T heat so intensely that it decided not field a candidate from here.
Telugu Desam MP Ramesh Rathod had to face an awkward situation on Friday when he was gheraoed by tribal organisations at Utnoor in Adilabad district where they demanded his resignation from the party and the Lok Sabha.
The party deputy leader in the State Assembly and vociferous member N Janardhan Reddy distanced himself from the party from March this year and had virtually revolted against the party's two-eyed policy.
Four other MLAs, K Harishwar Reddy, S Venugopalachari and Jogi Ramana, have also distanced themselves from the party and have been sailing with Nagam Janardhan Reddy.
It is said that they too would soon be resigning from the party and assembly. The TDP, once very strong in the region and which still has a good cadre, is losing out its support base to opponents like TRS on the Telangana issue.
It lost deposits in 2010 by-elections, following resignation of MLAs from TRS, BJP and TDP. Mr Naidu's much dramatic protest and arrest during Bhabli agitation also did not yield much sympathy.
Even the repeated statements by Mr Naidu that the TDP was not against T state and that the issue has to be resolved by the Centre failed to help TDP get the support of the people from the region.
The T TDP leaders have been facing trouble in moving around in the region. Even on Thursday, they had to face the ire of the people when they took out bus yatra.
They have also not been able to participate openly in the ongoing Sakala Janula Samme and had to remain confined to holding meetings in TD legislature party office and making statements.
News Posted: 1 October, 2011
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