Fissures in AP BJP with Kanna blaming Veerraju for lack of coordination with JSP
VIJAYAWADA: Fissures have emerged in the state BJP as its former president Kanna Lakshminarayana accused incumbent Somu Veerraju of failing to properly coordinate with Jana Sena leadership for the two parties to “sail together” as an alliance in the state.
Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan recently commented that despite his party having an alliance with BJP, there was no proper coordination from the BJP, and hence not much headway for the alliance to jointly organise a series of programmes.
Kanna Lakshminarayana has been in touch with Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan for some time saying the AP BJP leadership failed to maintain proper relations with him.
Lakshminarayana is likely to leave BJP and join the Jana Sena. He has been a
staunch opponent of Telugu Desam chief N Chandrababu Naidu from the beginning of his political career.
Notably, when Lakshminarayana was about to join the YSR Congress, he got an offer from the BJP national leadership to lead the party in AP and it happened that way. He, though, was later replaced as state BJP chief by another leader. Lakshminarayana had also been made a BJP national executive member.
When contacted, Lakshminarayana said, “Whatever Pawan Kalyan said is true. If our party central leadership asks me about this, I will certainly inform them as to
how the state BJP leadership failed to maintain proper relationship with the
Jana Sena leadership.”
Ever since the change of leadership in state BJP from Kanna Lakshminarayana to Somu Veerraju, both were not getting along well. Veerraju often draws criticism that he never allows other leaders to join him in organising party programmes.
Lakshminarayana said when he was the party chief, there used to be a meeting between BJP national general secretary D Purandeswari and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan every month and with other BJP leaders every two months. Such a practice was not being followed after his term as party chief, and this caused a void between the two parties.
However, Lakshminarayana denied any plan to leave the BJP and said he reacted on Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan’s statement only to confirm this was true.
