Vijayashanthi quits BJP, set to join Congress

Hyderabad: Former MP and actor Vijayashanti resigned from the BJP and is likely to join the Congress party. According to reports, Vijayashanti sent her resignation letter to the BJP state president G. Kishan Reddy.

There are reports that she will officially join the Congress in a function to be attended by AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi.

It was in 1998 that the popular South star began her political career with the BJP. She was appointed secretary of the party's Mahila Morcha.  Later, she formed her own party during the peak of the Telangana statehood agitation and later merged it with the TRS. 

In 2009, she was elected to Parliament from Medak constituency as a TRS candidate. But, due to differences of opinion with the party leadership, in 2014, she resigned from TRS and joined Congress and unsuccessfully contested from Medak constituency. She was the star campaigner for the Congress in the 2018 Assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

But, the actor-turned-politician was not active in the party after the Congress's defeat in the elections and switched to the saffron party in 2020.