HYDERABAD: In a swift political decision, Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday called up TDP leader from Kodad, Bollam Mallaiah Yadav and invited him to join TRS. Within the 12 hours of talking to Rao’s, Yadav, along with a huge number of followers joined TRS in the presence of party leader KT Rama Rao at Telangana Bhavan on Friday evening. Yadav will be declared as TRS’ Kodad candidate by KCR soon. In 2014, Yadav stood second, losing to the Congress candidate N Padmvathi Reddy, wife of TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy.
TRS has been determined to win Kodad this time and it eagerly awaited the Grand Alliance’s seat-sharing to be finalised to see which party would be allotted with it. Senior TRS leaders had said earlier that whoever gets the seat, candidates from other parties in the Alliance are bound to be dissatisfied. Speaking at the meeting, flanked by Yadav on his side, KT Rama Rao claimed Congress was dishonest in the way it was distributing tickets. “The Congress party is ignoring leaders from Backward Castes,” he said. “On the contrary,” Rao said, “K Chandrasekhar Rao had himself called Yadav into the party and assured his support to BC leaders.”
Will win 16 LS seats
At a separate meeting, KT Rama Rao predicted that TRS would win at least 16 Lok Sabha seats and play a key role at the national level in 2019. He also said that TRS would not join hands with the BJP, as it was ‘ideologically opposite’ to them. He made these comments while inducting Minority community Congress leaders Abid Rasool Khan and Kheleel Ur Rehman into TRS at Telangana Bhavan in Banjara Hills.