YSR Congress party has received a shot in the arm with youth leader and former MLA from Vijayawada (West) Vellampalli Srinivas deciding to join the party in a day or two.
Srinivas, considered to be a dynamic leader in Vijayawada, unsuccessfully contested on the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014 elections against then YSR Congress party candidate Jaleel Khan. Since Jaleel Khan has now defected to the Telugu Desam Party, decks have been cleared for Srinivas’ entry into the YSR Congress party.
In fact, Srinivas who won the MLA seat from Vijayawada (West) in 2009 elections on behalf of Praja Rajyam Party which later got merged with the Congress party, desperately tried to get into the YSR Congress party in 2014.
However, YSRC president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy preferred Jaleel Khan because the constituency has good number of minority votes. Having no other option, Srinivas tried to join the TDP but the seat was given to the BJP as part of seat sharing. So, he joined the BJP and contested in the elections, but lost to Jaleel Khan.
Interestingly, there is a speciality for Vijayawada West constituency – no candidate has won twice consecutively from the constituency in the past two decades.
Going by this norm, Jaleel Khan has least chances of victory and hence, Srinivas preferred the obvious choice, YSR Congress party, say sources.
