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Congress leader, former Andhra CM Kiran Reddy likely to join BJP
Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy is likely to resign from the party and join the Bharatiya Janata Party, people privy to the development said
Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy is likely to resign from the party and join the Bharatiya Janata Party, people privy to the development said.
A senior BJP leader said on condition of anonymity that Reddy has been in touch with the party’s top leadership in Delhi for the last few days and has been given green signal to join the party. “He is likely to meet Union home minister Amit Shah in Hyderabad on Sunday and formally join the party,” he said.
The BJP leadership has offered a key post to Kiran in the party and is expected to project him as the face of the party in the next elections in Andhra Pradesh.
A four-time MLA, Reddy also served as Speaker of the AP state legislative assembly between 2009 and 2010, before being anointed as the chief minister of the combined state in November 2010.
He had opposed the Congress high command’s decision to bifurcate combined Andhra Pradesh to form separate Telangana and resisted the move till the last moment. A day after the passage of the bifurcation bill in parliament in February 2014, he resigned from the Congress and the chief minister’s post.
Reddy floated a new political party, called Jai Samaikyandhra Party, a month later, on the promise of upholding the “dignity and prestige” of Telugu people. But after his party was rejected by the people in 2014 elections, he faded into political oblivion.
In 2018, he returned to the Congress but has not been very active in the party. Now, he is learnt to have decided to return to active politics by joining the BJP.
