Rumblings surfaced in Telugu Desam Party within days of the humiliating defeat in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh, with party MP from Vijayawada Kesineni Srinivas alias Nani on Wednesday refusing to accept the post of party whip in Lok Sabha.

Nani posted a message on his Facebook page saying that he was not suitable to handle the responsibilities of such a “big post.”

While thanking TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu for appointing him as party whip in Lok Sabha, the Vijayawada MP said he humbly requested Naidu to appoint someone else, “who is more capable and efficient than me to the post (sic).”

“The people of Vijayawada have given me their blessings and elected me as their Member of Parliament. I would be more than happy to serve the constituency full time rather than this post…. My apologies for rejecting the post,” Nani said.

The TDP won only three out of 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state. A week after the elections, Naidu held a meeting of the MPs and appointed Guntur MP Galla Jayadev as the parliamentary party leader and Srikakulam MP Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu as the party’s floor leader in Lok Sabha and Nani as the party whip. Former Union minister Y S Chowdary was selected as the floor leader in Rajya Sabha.

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Apparently, Nani was not happy with the whip post and was hurt with Naidu appointing Rammohan Naidu, a junior to him in politics, as the floor leader. He had been avoiding party leaders for the last few days. On Tuesay, he did not even attend the Iftar party hosted by Naidu in Vijayawada, though it was held in his own constituency.

Speculations were rife in Vijayawada that Nani is contemplating joining the BJP. On May 28, the MP went all the way to Nagpur to meet Union minister Nitin Gadkari to seek “his blessings.”

Describing Gadkari as his favourite politician, Nani posted in the Facebook that the Union minister was the one who had given him 100% support in the development of Vijayawada in the last five years by sanctioning long pending projects like Kanaka Durga Flyover, Benz Circle flyover, Vijayawada to Machilipatnam four-lane road etc.

“Gadkari assured me that his support for the development of Vijayawada,” the MP said.

Following reports that Nani had rejected the party whip post in Lok Sabha, parliamentary party leader Jayadev Galla rushed to his residence in the afternoon and spent over an hour trying to convince him to accept the post.

Speaking to reporters later, Galla said, “We shall find out what exactly he wanted in the party.”

Nani said self-respect was more important for him than any other post. The Vijayawada MP, however, refuted the reports that he was going to join the BJP. “There is no truth in the reports. My defection to the BJP is as true as Chandrababu Naidu joining the YSR Congress party,” he clarified.

First Published: Jun 05, 2019 17:39 IST