Senior Telugu Desam Party legislator and former minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao, who played a major role in north coastal Andhra politics for the last two decades, seems to have lost his glory.
Thanks to his dilly-dallying attitude in continuing in the party, the TDP leadership has completely sidelined him.
Despite his seniority and influence in Visakhapatnam, Ganta could not find a place in any of the party committees constituted by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu recently.
And Ganta has to blame himself for this present position. He has virtually nothing to do now, as there are no takers for him in any other party.
Ever since the TDP lost power to YSR Congress in May 2019, Ganta has been keeping away from the party activities.
He made a desperate attempt to take a plunge into YSRC sometime ago, but there were different opinions on his entry into the ruling party.
A section of the YSRC appeared to have welcomed him into the party, but there was an equally strong opposition to his entry.
Many leaders including party general secretary V Vijay Sai Reddy, minister Avanti Srinivas and MLA Gudivada Amarnath had strongly stonewalled Ganta’s attempts to defect into the YSRC. So, it remained pending.
After watching his double game, the Bharatiya Janata Party, too, has dropped its plans to welcome Ganta into the party.
He cannot continue in the TDP also, because if he does, the YSRC government would launch a witch-hunt for him as he has several business activities in Visakhapatnam.
So, Ganta ended up neither here nor there. The TDP chief would have given him a good post and position, but since Ganta himself is not certain about his position, Naidu might have thought it would only send wrong signals to the cadre by giving him a post.
It remains to be seen whether it is only a comma, or full stop for Ganta in the TDP.
