With the elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation round the corner, senior Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader and Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao is back to his old game of Operation Akarsh to lure key leaders from the Opposition parties.
According to party sources, Harish Rao has played a key role in luring senior TDP leader and Cantonment MLA G Sayanna into the TRS.
Sayanna, along with Congress MLC from Hyderabad S Prabhakar, joined the TRS in the presence of party chief and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday.
It is learnt Harish Rao had a tough bargain with both the leaders, as their entry into the TRS would improve the chances of the party in the GHMC elections.
It may be mentioned that Harish had successfully engineered the defection of four other TDP legislators in the past into the TRS.
They were: Talasani Srinivas Yadav from Sanath Nagar, Teegala Krishna Reddy from Maheshwaram, Manchireddy Kishan Reddy from Ibrahimpatnam and Madhavaram Krishna Rao from Kukatpally.
With the inclusion of Sayanna, a four-time MLA, the ruling party will be able to make inroads into both the Cantonment area as well the SC voter base in the city.
Now, the TDP is left with just a couple of MLAs in the city – Vivekananda in Quthbullapur and R Krishnaiah from L B Nagar.
Sayanna, however, was thankful to the TDP for giving him political birth. He said though there was not a single instance that hurt him in the TDP, he took a plunge to join the ruling party in the interests of his constituency.
He said he got full respect in the TDP in all respects, but he was constrained to leave it for the development of his Secunderabad Cantonment constituency.
