In a fresh setback to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), former Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy joined the Congress party on Friday, June 21, after Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, along with the Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy called on the senior BRS MLA at his residence. Srinivas Reddy is a senior leader from the BRS who has been with the party since 2011. With his latest defection from the BRS, four BRS MLAs have joined the Congress. The other defected MLAs are Danam Nagender, Kadiyam Srihari, and Tellam Venkat Rao.

After being inducted into the party, the former Speaker claimed that he joined the Congress due to the commitment of the Telangana government towards farmers. 

Speaking to the media, Srinivas Reddy applauded the pro-farmer attitude of Chief Minister Revanth Reddy. He said that as a farmer himself, he was impressed with how the Government was implementing the pro-farmer schemes in the state. 

Srinivas Reddy was the Speaker from 2018 to 2023 in the BRS government. In the previous term, he served as the Agriculture Minister between 2014 and 2018. It is being speculated that Srinivas Reddy would be offered a cabinet position in the government. 

Srinivas Reddy is one of the senior politicians of Telangana and started his political career with the Congress in 1976 and later joined the TDP in 1984. He joined the TRS (now BRS) in 2011 during the Telangana movement. 

Meanwhile, chaos prevailed outside Srinivas Reddy’s residence after BRS activists led by former MP Balka Suman protested Srinivas Reddy joining the Congress. The police subsequently detained them. 

According to  Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender, who shifted his loyalties from BRS to Congress before the Parliament elections, 20 more BRS MLAs would soon join the Congress.