Palvai Sravanthi quits Congress, to join BRS

Hyderabad: In a jolt to the Congress, senior leader Palvai Sravanthi Reddy, daughter for the late Palvai Govardhan Reddy, tendered her resignation to the party on Saturday, upset at the party denying her a ticket from Munugode where she had contested a byelection in November last year. She is likely to join the BRS.

The Congress gave the ticket to Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, who returned to the party from the BJP on October 27. His resignation from the Congress and the Assembly last year had resulted in the bypoll which he fought on a BJP ticket.

Sravanthi on Saturday addressed a press conference at Press Club, Somajiguda, to announce her resignation.

In a four-page resignation letter addressed to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, she said that their silence and inaction were doing no good to the party in Telangana. She said that old-timers and those who had dedicated themselves to the party had no place or respect now.

She accused TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy of scripting the end of the Congress in spirit, nullifying the values and principles it stood for. The party was suffering due to one person’s attempts to turn it into a commercial entity.

“It is highly deplorable how Rajgopal Reddy, who was responsible for the Munugode bypoll and who was crying foul against Revanth Reddy was overnight accepted back and was given a ticket,”
she said.

Sravanthi said, "The party’s original persona in my state has been completely mutilated, and in its place we see a commercial organisation and a profit-making entity that ensures the party goes against the grain at every stage. This has rattled the spirit of many like me, and shattered the hope of any bright future, for individuals or the party.”

She said her father Palvai Goverdhan Reddy was a selfless statesman “whose life was submitted, in its fullest capacity and purest form, to the party.” She pointed out: “From late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Rahul Gandhi, through Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, he was a staunch supporter and a loyalist to the Gandhi family, she said.

id that it is part of the plan for the next Lok Sabha polls as the party is planning to get more than 50 per cent vote share and that it can be achieved only by increasing party acceptance among new communities.