HYDERABAD: The early announcement of 115 BRS candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Monday practically shut any talk, for the time being, of leaders from other parties attempting to make their way to the ruling party.
At the same time, the BRS list also left little room for the Congress and the BJP to attract into their folds unhappy BRS leaders, who were threatening to jump ship if denied party tickets.
Monday’s announcement by Chandrashekar Rao also put an end to speculation that some Congress leaders, and some also from the BJP, were looking at BRS as a possible option to get into the Assembly.
“This confusion was sown by the BRS itself that some of our leaders were leaving,” a Congress leader said, referring to rumours that senior Congress leaders, including the likes of Capt. N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and T. Jagga Reddy, were set to quit and join the ruling party in Telangana state.
At the same time, there were some in the BJP who too were rumoured to have been getting ready to quit, but with the BRS now closing that option, both parties are expected to deal with their internal dissidence, something the BRS hopes will sow much-needed confusion — from its point of view — within BJP and the Congress.
Incidentally, the BJP had been claiming for the past few days that it has lined up 22 leaders who were ready to join the party. Many of these were reportedly from the BRS, who, the BJP hoped, would be left out of the BRS list and would be happy to join the BJP to give it a much-needed boost in several constituencies.
These 22 leaders were expected to join the BJP at the August 27 public meeting, which is scheduled to be addressed by Union home minister Amit Shah.
