The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday, July 4 issued an order appointing Daggubati Purandeshwari as the party’s Andhra Pradesh president. She replaces Somu Veerraju who held the post since July 2020. Purandeswari is a former Union minister who joined the BJP in 2014, after she opposed the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh by the then UPA government.

Purandeshwari is currently a National General Secretary of the BJP and the party in-charge of Odisha. She is the daughter of veteran Telugu actor and late Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, NT Rama Rao, who also founded the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). She was a member of the Congress Party and elected as Member of Parliament (MP) from Visakhapatnam in 2009. While in Congress, she was made Minister of State for Human Resource Development and then Commerce under the UPA. After the bifurcation of the state, she switched her loyalties to BJP.

Somu Veerraju faced accusations of running the party like his ‘personal fiefdom’ by a party colleague, ex Minister and former BJP Andhra President Kanna Lakshminarayana. Alleging that Veerraju was inhibiting the growth of the party by not encouraging newcomers, Kanna resigned from the BJP in February this year, asserting that he was neglected and faced humiliation by Veerraju. He later joined the TDP.

The order issued by BJP’s national president JP Nadda stated that the appointment of Purandreshwari will come into effect immediately.

Veerraju, a former MLC, has been a follower of RSS since his younger days. He has also previously held several positions in BJP’s Yuva Morcha. He belongs to the Kapu caste, a community with significant votes share in the state. He is believed to be the man behind strategising the NDA’s alliance with actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party during the 2014 Assembly elections.