Sources said that D. Srinivas won’t formally join BJP at present, but will work for the party in Parliament. His son became a BJP Lok Sabha member by defeating KCR’s daughter Kavitha.
Hyderabad: Rajya Sabha member D. Srinivas, who has been sidelined by his TRS leadership, has decided to associate with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Upper House. Popularly known as DS, he called on BJP national president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Thursday. Sources said that DS will not formally join BJP at present, but will work with the party in Parliament.
BJP Lok Sabha member from Nizamabad, Dharmapuri Aravind is the younger son of DS. The unexpected win of Aravind against Chief Minister KCR’s daughter Kavitha in Nizambad has come as a morale booster to the BJP which is trying to gain a foothold in South India and emerge as an alternative to TRS in Telangana by the next elections. BJP, which admitted four TDP MPs from Andhra Pradesh in Rajya Sabha recently, will get one more MP from Telangana in the form of DS. However, DS will not be able to officially join BJP as he hasn’t yet been suspended or expelled by the TRS leadership. TRS chief KCR hasn’t taken any disciplinary action against DS only to prevent him from joining any other party.
DS has been sidelined within TRS after he fell from grace of Kavitha before the Assembly elections last year. Peeved at the clandestine support extended by DS to his son Aravind against her in the Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat, Kavitha led a delegation of party leaders to her father KCR, seeking disciplinary action against the RS MP.
There has been no official action against DS from KCR, but since then, the RS MP has been kept away from party affairs at all levels. Even when DS attended a TRS legislature party meeting last September, no one talked to him or greeted him. After that, DS called on Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and worked for it in the December Assembly elections.
However, he openly worked for his son Aravind in the April Lok Sabha elections and declared that he had nothing to do with the TRS. DS is understood to have secured the tacit support of his one-time disciple and Congress candidate from Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat Madhu Yashki to his son Aravind. Yashki’s support has played a role in the victory of Aravind by a comfortable majority of around 68,000 votes.
After winning four Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, the BJP leadership has been trying hard to expand its footprint in the state so as to grow fast and strong by the next elections. Even Shah in his recent visit to Hyderabad had told his party leaders to see that as many seniors from other parties as possible join BJP to make it a natural choice of alternative to TRS. The decline of Congress due to the vacuum in leadership both at the Centre and state levels has created an opportunity for the BJP to occupy the main Opposition space in Telangana. Sources close to DS told this newspaper that though their leader, who held several key positions including a senior minister and president of the Pradesh Congress Committee for two terms, was basically a Congressman.
But the utter confusion in the party both at the state and national levels has prompted DS to look for an alternative in BJP. “BJP wants to expand its base among the OBCs and MBCs (minority OBCs); as DS hails from Munnuru Kapus, an OBC community, he perfectly fits into its political agenda,” said Taher Ahmed, a former Congress leader and follower of DS.
Moreover, BJP, which is keen on improving its tally in Rajya Sabha, would like to be benefitted by the presence of DS in its folds in many ways. BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who held several rounds of talks with DS since recently, is understood to have urged the latter to see to it that some more senior OBC Congressmen joined BJP. Currently, BJP doesn’t have in its ranks enough seniors who can talk to senior Congress leaders in Telangana. So, the presence of DS in its fold would definitely help it establish communication with Congress leaders who can join BJP. BJP state president K. Laxamn had tried to get some big leaders when Shah came here on last Saturday; he could only get Nadendla Bhaskara Rao, former AP Chief Minister.
The BJP president was learnt to have expressed his displeasure over only Bhaskara Rao joining the party, as he enjoys the dubious distinction of being a Chief Minister for one month without facing the Assembly in August 1984. Moreover, BJP’s top leaders, including A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, had opposed Bhaskara Rao’s coup against late NTR then as “murder of democracy”.
So, the BJP will now utilise the services of DS to woo many seniors from other parties in the comwing days. The biggest disadvantage of DS is his technical status of being a TRS MP. He wants to be expelled from TRS without being disqualified. However, the TRS leadership is waiting for a chance to file a petition against him for his disqualification from Rajya Sabha.