Hyderabad: The ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has a big headache to sort it on its hands — internecine feuds.
Warring BRS leaders have made no effort to hide these fights and are holding press conferences and hurling abuses at their rivals in public, and on social media, indicating the level of dissidence and infighting within the party. Some of these leaders are now so brazenly emboldened as to even ignore the directives of the leadership while going out with their complaints.
The rift between senior leaders has widened in several constituencies over the issue of securing nominations, BRS sources conceded.
With state Assembly elections scheduled to be held in just five months, the party is so rife with infighting that it is witnessing many mid-level and junior leaders leave its ranks and join the Opposition, especially the resurgent Congress. Such unprecedented departure and exists from the BRS is putting paid to the efforts of the pink party to convince its own people that it is on cue to scoring a hat trick.
The departure of second-rung leaders like members of mandal praja parishads, mandal and zilla parishad territorial committees, who play a key role in garnering the support of voters at the ground level, has become a cause of major concern, sources confessed.
The anti-incumbency against several MLAs is further adding to the woes of the party, with common people stopping ministers and MLAs in their constituencies and questioning them on unfulfilled promises.
Minister Ch Malla Reddy was stopped four times in the last one week by irate people, who questioned him over his failure to fulfill promises on crop loan waiver, 2BHK houses for poor and Dalit Bandhu.
Parigi MLA Koppula Mahesh Reddy, Achampet MLA Guvvala Balaraju, Bhongir MLA Pailla Shekar Reddy and Munugode MLA Koosukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, who was elected just last November, have invited the wrath of people in the past week.
With the party facing such dissidence amongst voters, its own leaders fighting in the open, and people heckling BRS leaders and seeking answers over unfulfilled promises, the leadership is watching helplessly.
Repeated warnings issued by party president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and party working president K.T. Rama Rao to quell dissidence have failed to douse the fires.
On Tuesday, Rama Rao summoned MLA Thatikonda Rajaiah, who is engaged in a bitter political feud with MLC Kadiam Srihari in Station Ghanpur, to Pragathi Bhavan and asked him not to go to the media with the party's internal issues.
But Rajaiah went before the media and stated that as the MLA he was supreme in the constituency and would get the ticket as the party president had said all legislators would be renominated.
