Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party has formed a three-member fact-finding committee consisting of three senior leaders to conduct a full-fledged “probe” into the reasons behind some of the senior leaders meeting TRS working president and Minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao to seek support for electing a family member of deceased victorious candidate A. Ramesh Goud from Lingojiguda division of Ranga Reddy district without the consent of top leadership, in the Pragati Bhavan recently.
Party president Bandi Sanjay Kumar issued a press statement on Tuesday and did not mince words in stating that the senior leaders including former MLC N. Ramachander Rao and P. Shekar Rao had “erred” in taking the son of Ramesh Goud to meet KTR and it went against the party’s principles and stand. The meeting had sent wrong signals to the cadre especially as it happened just before the Nagarajunasagar bypoll.
“The initiative was taken unilaterally without informing the leadership. Neither I nor Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy, former president K. Laxman, senior leader P. Muralidhar Rao, vice-president D.K. Aruna have been kept in the loop. The meeting was ill-advised because the party had won handsomely in all the divisions of L.B. Nagar in recent elections and is in a position to win on its own,” he claimed.
At the same time, he stated that the TRS had agreed not to field any candidate against Mr. Goud in the by-election. The three-member fact-finding committee consisting of Malla Reddy, Laxminarayana and S. Kumar would be submitting a report after looking into the incident so that there was no need for others to speculate, Mr. Sanjay Kumar maintained.
Party sources informed that the BJP leaders in the dock did not expect such a backlash as they had also met Congress MP Revanth Reddy seeking the party’s cooperation in avoiding a contest. However, this meeting did not attract as much attention as the one in Pragati Bhavan leading to much furore.
