Hyderabad: With less than a week to go for a much-awaited BJP public meeting in Khammam, to be addressed by Union minister Amit Shah, the party received a jolt on Tuesday, with its Bhadradri-Kothagudem district unit president Koneru Satyanarayana announcing that he is throwing his lot with the ruling BRS.
Shah’s meeting in Khammam is scheduled for August 27, and the BJP is pinning a lot of hope on the event to boost its presence after two scheduled public meetings of his were cancelled at the last minute. Shah is also expected to have a closed-door meeting with state party leaders and discuss the BJP’s preparedness for the Assembly elections, and possible candidates.
Amid reports that Satyanarayana, popularly known as Koneru Chinni, met with BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and party MLC K. Kavitha late on Monday, the BJP on Tuesday scrambled to suspend him.
In a terse statement, BJP state general secretary G. Premender Reddy said Satyanarayana was suspended for anti-party activities, in violation of party guidelines. The suspension, he said, comes into immediate effect.
By then, the damage was done, as Satyanarayana announced his decision to quit the BJP before his suspension and also sent a letter to the party, announcing his resignation from the party. Satyanarayana, the son of former TD leader Koneru Nageswara Rao, had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 elections from the Kothagudem Assembly constituency as a TD candidate and in 2017, joined the BJP,
Some BJP leaders dismissed Satyanarayana’s departure from the party as inconsequential, saying he never really did much for the party in the district.
But a senior leader admitted that Satyanarayana’s decision to jump ship to the BRS just days before Shah visits the state, and his public meeting in Khammam, “does not make for good optics, and gives the BRS some brownie points that it can talk about.”
