Yennam declares war on Kishan

Hyderabad: Yennam Srinivas Reddy, BJP’s state vice-president from Mahbubnagar district who was suspended for anti-party activities two days ago, declared an all-out war on party state president G. Kishan Reddy for having sabotaged the party's chances for his selfish ends.

In a no-holds-barred media conference, Srinivas Reddy declared: “The BJP is no longer being seen by the people as a contender that can prevent KCR from returning to power.”

The former BJP MLA said that state BJP leaders, “including the present president, clearly know that they will not win in Telangana. We will not get rural votes but the party keeps dangling hope before party workers, and eventually betrays them. These handful of leaders running the show may go on to get nominated positions.”

He said that the BJP had risen in strength under the leadership of former state president Bandi Sanjay from nearly nothing to 32 per cent in opinion surveys but declined steeply to 12 per cent after Kishan Reddy was named.

He said, “Sanjay being youthful and keen to fight BRS was more active. He may have had problems in coordination with other leaders, or was misled by those around him, and these are common occurrences in politics, but the BJP vote share rose under his leadership. Since his term as president was over, some of us thought we should have a leader who played a crucial role during the Telangana statehood movement.”

Reddy said, “We wanted change. We tried. The motive was to strengthen the party and propel it to power. We felt Etala Rajendar should have been named president after Sanjay's term was over. Even the BJP leadership in Delhi was misled. They brought back the man who could win just about one seat and five seats in his two attempts. Now the BJP vote share is down to 12 per cent.”

He said there was a clear “match fixing with the BRS”, which became evident in April during Union home minister Amit Shah’s public meeting in Chevella. “Shah said at that meeting that the BJP’s primary battle was against Owaisi, but did not mention about fighting KCR. Investigating agencies are under Mr Shah’s control, be it ED or CBI, or others, then why is not action being taken against the corruption of either KCR os his family members,” he wondered.

“Even when state police were distributing cash to voters in Munugode during the bypoll (in November last year), at a time when party workers worked hard to aid (Komatireddy) Rajgopal to win, the central government, which had all power to stop this from happening, did nothing. This gave further credence to the perception that a deal had been struck with the BRS. Now everyone believes BJP and BRS are bhai-bhai,” he said.

He said each time a leader from other parties joined the BJP, Shah assured them that there was no question of any truck with the BRS. “We told the high command repeatedly that the only reason we were joining the BJP in Telangana was to defeat KCR and do justice to our people,” he said.

“This assurance was repeated every time a new leader joined, like D.K. Aruna, Etala Rajendar, Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy. But ask any BJP worker today and they will tell you that BRS and BJP are allies. The BJP may win an odd seat in urban areas but in rural areas there is little chance of it doing so. The BJP national leadership has become like Dhritarashtra who was blind,” he said.

He said he would announce his future course of action but it had to be a platform where all leaders of separate Telangana movement can come together and fight for the common goal of saving people of Telangana from KCR misrule.