ADILABAD: Disgruntled TRS leaders, who failed to secure party tickets, are now making a beeline to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Many leaders, who have been working since the party’s inception with the hope that the party leadership would recognise their contribution and allot party tickets to them, are now highly disappointed after they failed to secure tickets. Desperate to contest the polls they are joining a lesser known party like BSP.
Take the case of Mancherial where senior TRS leader and MPP Berra Satyanarayana was expecting party ticket this time, but since the party leadership renominated the sitting MLA, all his hopes were dashed. A frustrated Satyanarayana joined the BSP and had even started campaign in the constituency against the sitting MLA.
TRS leader from Sirpur Kagaznagar Kaveti Sammiah, who lost 2014 elections by a small margin, is also planning to join BSP soon. Former MLAs of Nirmal and Sirpur Kagaznagar A Indrakaran Reddy and Konneru Konnappa won on BSP ticket in the last elections but later switched loyalties to Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
Sammiah, who is opposing Konneru Konnappa’s candidature, argue that the latter belongs to Andhra Pradesh and giving him the ticket was not correct.
Sammiah also stated that the constituency has more BC population and denying ticket to him, who is a BC, would have adverse affect on the prospects of the party.
Despite being a national party and having a huge section of its target groups (SC, ST, BC and Minorities) in Telangana, BSP has less presence in the state. In 2014, BSP had 2 MLAs who later shifted their loyalties to TRS.