HYDERABAD: Four BRS MLAs from the politically significant district of Medak for the party, met with Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Tuesday, in what was described as a courtesy call.
The meeting sparked speculation about their joining the Congress, given that the four MLAs —Sunitha Laxma Reddy (Narsapur), Kotha Prabhakar Reddy (Dubbak), Gudem Mahipal Reddy (Patancheru) and K. Manik Rao (Zaheerabad) — chose to meet Revanth Reddy as a group.
Although the BRS MLAs claimed it was a courtesy call and that they discussed the development of their constituencies, political circles recall earlier statements made by Congress and TD MLAs when they met the then chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. They had later joined the BRS.
Sources in the Congress said that although several BRS MLAs are willing to join the ruling party, Revanth Reddy was yet to give his approval.
It may be recalled that Revanth Reddy during his interaction with the media early this month stated that he would not make the first move to encourage defections from the BRS. But if the BRS leadership attempted to destabilise the Congress government, he would not sit quiet.
With regard to possible defections, it was stated that in 2018, when the Congress had won 19 seats, the BRS despite securing an absolute majority of 88 seats, engineered defections and took 12 Congress MLAs into its fold. The defection of two-third of the MLAs was to facilitate the merger of the Congress Legislature Party into the BRSLP to avoid anti-defection law.
In 2015, 12 TD MLAs joined the BRS resulting in merger of TDPLP with BRSLP.
The BRS now has 39 MLAs. Twenty-six MLAs — two-third of the BRSLP — have to join the Congress to merge the BRSLP with the CLP.
There is also the example of MLAs like Talasani Srinivas Yadav, who worked with the BRS and became a minister but remained with the Telugu Desam in the Assembly records.
A senior minister told Deccan Chronicle that seven BRS MLAs were in touch with him seeking a meeting with Revanth Reddy to discuss on entry into the ruling party. "They are after me to arrange a meeting but I have to get clearance from CM", he said.
The Congress has 64 MLAs and 26 BRS MLAs joining it will take its strength to 90, which is more than two-third majority (80 seats).
Another senior minister said, "We are already in touch with 17 BRS MLAs who are ready to join Congress."
It is learnt that none of the Congress MLAs was keen to join the BRS if the Opposition party sought to engineer defections to dethrone the Congress government.
The general feeling among Congress MLAs is that Revanth Reddy is accessible and allows them to work independently rather than working under BRS government, which was known for its inaccessible CM and family-centric governance.
Meanwhile, BRS Patancheru MLA Mahipal Reddy said there was no reason to attribute political motives to their meeting with Revanth Reddy, adding that it should be viewed on the same lines as that of Revanth Reddy calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently.
He also expressed confidence that the BRS will win from Medak in the Lok Sabha elections.
