In a big jolt to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana, 35 of its senior leaders, including former MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and ex-Minister Jupally Krishna Rao, joined the Congress on Monday.
This comes after former Congress president Rahul Gandhi recently expressed confidence in the party’s victory over the BRS in the forthcoming Assembly elections scheduled for later this year.
The leaders officially joined the Congress in the presence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi. Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal and A Revanth Reddy, the chief of Congress in Telangana, were also present during the meeting. During a Press interaction prior to an Opposition meet in Patna last week, Rahul specifically mentioned Telangana and expressed the Congress’ determination to win all forthcoming Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, while noting that people would be surprised by the results in Telangana.
The Congress party aims to seize power from the BRS, which has held control in Telangana for nearly a decade. In November of the previous year, Rahul led the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, extensively traversing the State. With the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and the recent rally held by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi in the State on the eve of the Karnataka polls last month, the Congress has set its sights on Telangana.