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As four TDP lawmakers join BJP, Naidu swings into damage control
Naidu, who was on a vacation with his family in Europe, announced the appointment of Ravindra Kumar as party floor leader and Seetharama Lakshmi as deputy floor leader in the Upper House.
A day after four of six Rajya Sabha MPs of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), party president N Chandrababu Naidu swung into action to keep his remaining flock together.
On Friday, the Rajya Sabha secretariat on its website notified that the four MPs – Y S Chowdary, C M Ramesh, T G Venkatesh and Garikapati Mohan Rao -- are part of the BJP and that the TDP is left with only two MPs – Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar and Thota Seetharama Lakshmi. The updated website says that the BJP now has 75 MPs while the TDP has just two.
Naidu, who was on a vacation with his family in Europe, announced the appointment of Ravindra Kumar as party floor leader and Seetharama Lakshmi as deputy floor leader in the Upper House.
Following telephonic instructions from Naidu, a team of five TDP lawmakers -- including Kumar, Seetharama Lakshmi and Lok Sabha MPs Galla Jayadev, Kesineni Nani and K Rammohan Naidu – called on Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi and submitted a memorandum, protesting the merger of the four MPs with the BJP.
“We strongly protested the notification of four TDP lawmakers as BJP members on the Rajya Sabha website. Venkaiah Naidu said he would look into the matter,” Kumar told reporters after the meeting.
The TDP president held a teleconference with party seniors, including Andhra unit president Kala Venkat Rao, on Friday evening.
“The party has witnessed several such crisis situations in the past, and every time, it has bounced back with new strength. So, there is nothing to worry,” Venkat Rao said.
But BJP state vice-president S Vishnu Vardhan Reddy told reporters in Amaravati, “You are going to witness dramatic changes in the TDP by the time Naidu returns from his foreign tour on June 26.”
The Rajya Sabha secretariat has acknowledged the shift of the four TDP MPs to the BJP in the Upper House. The change has also been reflected in the official record and their website now shows BJP has 75 MPs while TDP has just 2 MPs.
