Medchal−Malkajgiri District Congress Committee president Nandhikanti Sridhar is the latest leader to leave Congress amid a wave of defections ahead of the Telangana Assembly elections. In his resignation letter dated October 3, Sridhar said he was upset over Backward Classes (BC) leaders like him being sidelined in the party, in favour of newly joined candidates from BRS. He was referring to sitting Malkajgiri MLA Mynampally Hanumanth Rao and his son Rohith Reddy, who recently switched from BRS to Congress.
Mynampally left BRS after the party refused to heed his demand that his son Rohith Reddy must also be allowed to contest on a BRS ticket from Medak, along with him. Ignoring his threats, BRS had only included Mynampally on its candidate list, while Padma Devender Reddy, the sitting MLA, got the Medak ticket.
The Congress is yet to announce its candidates for the 2023 Assembly polls. Incidentally, the president of Medak DCC Tirupati Reddy too recently quit the party alleging that wealthy candidates were being favoured over those with a strong support base among cadres.
Sridhar, in his resignation letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, said he had learned that Congress was considering giving tickets to Mynampally and his son. He said that such a move would go against the Udaipur declaration of the party, which had said that only one ticket should be given to one family. Sridhar also said he was upset with the decision, stating that Congress supporters had fought with Mynampally on various issues in the past and were booked by the police as a result.
He also alleged in his letter that Congress caused injustice by denying tickets to BC leaders such as himself, despite their qualifications. Sridhar wrote, "The Congress party has promised a bright future for qualified BC community members. Only one member of each family will be given a ticket to run in elections, the party stated in its Udaipur declaration. On the other hand, one family in Telangana, particularly in the districts of Malkajgiri and Medak, has been given or granted two tickets. This is injustice.”
Earlier on September 28, Kumbham Anil Kumar, the DCC president of Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district who had defected to the BRS two months earlier, returned to the Congress after Revanth Reddy reportedly promised him a party ticket from the Bhongir Assembly seat.
The rate of defections may continue to rise once the Congress party announces its ticket distribution, most likely on October 8.