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AP: Vijayshanti all set to quit TRS and join Cong

By Mohammed Siddique in Hyderabad
August 01, 2009 17:57 IST
It is now more or less certain that the film actress-turned-politician Vijayshanti will quit the Telangana Rashtra Samiti as the party president K Chandrasekhara Rao has not included her in the 23 member politburo.

Vijayshanti, who as the secretary general and the chairperson of the political affairs committee of TRS had become the second most important leader after joining the party before the elections, has completely fallen out with the TRS leadership.

Vijayshanti and Rao were the only two TRS candidates to get elected to Lok Sabbha but within three months of the polls, the party strength is all set to get halved.

Strong hints have already been dropped by Vijayshanti about the likelihood of her joining the ruling Congress, as she not only met the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy but many other Congress leaders, as well as the TRS dissidents.

A Congress legislator T Jayprakash Reddy and former Medak Member of Parliament A Narednra, both of whom turned rebel in TRS and joined Congress, were among the important leaders who met Vijayshanti to persuade her to join the Congress party.

The sources close to Vijayshanti, who represents Medak in Lok Sabha, said that her exclusion from the TRS politburo has given her a reason to raise a banner of revolt as she feels humiliated and slighted by Chandrasekhara Rao.

"This is nothing new. He has been neglecting and humiliating me since I merged my Talli Telangana party before the elections", Vijayashanti told her supporters and the visitors. She was planning to write a letter to TRS chief Chandrasekhara Rao detailing all that she suffered in the party.

She was bitter that Rao had promised her to field from Medak Lok Sabha constituency as a bait to merge her party in to TRS.  "But after I merged the party, he tried to prevent me from entering the fray from Medak and maintained suspense till the last moment on whether I will get the ticket or not", she told her supporters.

According to Vijayshanti, even after her victory from Medak, no body in the party spoke to her for one month and when she went to New Delhi to attend the Parliament, telephone calls were made to her to stop her from attending the session.

Sources said that she will come out with more details before formally joining the Congress party in the first half of August.

The newly constituted politburo of TRS, which includes some seniors like N Narasimha Reddy and Capt Lakshmikant Rao, a dissident leader A Chandrasekhar and KCR's nephew T Harish Rao, met in Hyderabad on Saturday and discussed the reported "anti party activities" of Vijayshanti.

Interestingly, in view of the allegations of nepotism and family-rule in TRS, Chandrasekhara Rao did not include his son K T Rama Rao in the politburo.

Mohammed Siddique in Hyderabad

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