The sudden decision of senior Rayalaseema leader and former MLA Byreddy Rajasekhar Reddy to join the Congress party shows his desperation to find a new lease of life in politics.
Byreddy joined the Congress party in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday.
APCC president N Raghuveera Reddy, Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy, Dr K V P Ramachandra Rao and other leaders were present.
He told media on Sunday that he had joined the Congress party as he believed that it was the only party which could give special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
He said would strive to ensure that the party would win as many seats as possible in the next elections.
Byreddy attacked the Telugu Desam Party and the YSR Congress party had miserably failed to work for the aspirations of the people in their fight for political one-upmanship.
“They are power hungry and are not interested in the welfare of the people,” he alleged.
After winding up his Rayalaseema Parirakshana Samithi last year, the two-time MLA from Nandikotkur has been struggling to stage a comeback into active politics.
In the Nandyal by-elections last year, he fielded his follower to contest, but the latter could not get even a few hundred votes.
He made a desperate bid to rejoin the TDP and even called on TDP president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu at the latter’s residence at Vundavalli in Amaravati a few months ago.
Byreddy even told media later that Naidu had received him well and invited him to join the TDP. He even forced his follower to withdraw his nomination against the TDP candidate K E Prabhakar in the MLC elections.
But subsequently, he did not get any favourable assurance from the TDP on the position he would get in the party. So, he has been keeping away and now, he has taken a sudden decision to join the Congress.
“May be, he thought the Congress will be able to get back its lost glory at least partially and he might get some recognition there,” a Kurnool leader said.
