Munugode moves: TRS welcomes two BJP leaders into fold, two days after it lost one of its own

Swami Goud, a front-liner in the Telangana movement, fell out with Chief Minister K Chandraskekar Rao and joined the BJP in 2020.

After the formation of Telangana state in 2014, he was made the chairman of the Legislative Council and continued in office till 2019.

Return of a KCR critic

When he joined the BJP in the presence of party president JP Nadda, he had said that he could not bear the insults heaped on him in TRS and that he felt hurt when the chief minister did not see him even though he had tried a hundred times.

Now, in his letter to BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Goud said that he was leaving because he was pained to see the way the BJP had failed to give due recognition to the aspirations of true Telangana activists like him.

He said he did not like the party giving priority to contractors and those who are well-off, ignoring or sidelining those who worked with a sense of dedication for the development of Telangana state.

Dr Sravan’s surprise

Dr Dasoju Sravan’s decision also came as a big surprise as it is hardly two-and-half months since he joined the BJP, after parting ways with the Congress in August.

Sravan’s exit from BJP is understandable because he was not given any responsibility worth its name, but his entry into the TRS is a major surprise.

That is because till the time he left the Congress, he was a bitter critic of the TRS and the KCR family. As the national spokesperson of AICC, Sravan had addressed several press conferences where he had taken KCR and his family to the cleaners for their omissions and commissions.

When Sravan joined the Congress in 2014, he had said he took the membership of the party unconditionally to wage a war against KCR, as he, after the formation of Telangana, had turned his face away from those who fought selflessly for a separate state.

Sravan left the Congress and then joined the BJP soon after Munugode Congress MLA quit the party and donned saffron robes.

Related: Rumblings in TRS as it picks Reddy over BC as Munugode candidate

The BC factor in Munugode

Now, he has dashed off a letter to Bandi Sanjay in which he said that he was leaving the party as he found it loathsome to see the party bribing the voters of Munugode with money and supplying meat instead of canvassing for votes explaining what the BJP had done to the people.

“The BJP has no direction. I joined the party with an intent to serve the people, but I soon realised that the present party line neither helped the Telangana people nor in ushering in constructive politics,” he said in his resignation letter.

The sudden change of heart in the two BC leaders appears to be on account of the behind-the-scenes work done by the TRS leaders who realised that the BCs, who constitute about half of the 2.4 lakh electorate in Munugode, were ill at ease after the TRS fielded a non-BC leader as its candidate for Munugode by-election.

Now it is trying to build an atmosphere that the BCs are those who are close to the heart of KCR lest they should support the Opposition parties.