THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day after Anil K Antony joined the BJP, veteran Congress leader AK Antony’s younger son Ajith Paul Antony urged his elder brother to return to the Congress fold. “We are all shattered. Appa hardly slept last night. I urge him (Anil) to come back (to the Congress),” Ajith told TNIE on Friday.
Ajith said he was shocked to hear the news of Anil joining the Sangh Parivar. “I haven’t spoken to ‘chettan’ since,” he said. Ajith foresees a bleak future for his brother in the BJP. “The BJP is notorious for its use-and-throw policy. I’m pretty sure that my brother will endure a fate similar to that of curry leaves. Take the case of Metroman E Sreedharan, who they fielded from Palakkad in the 2021 assembly election. Once he lost, the BJP accorded him scant regard,” he added.
Meanwhile, a senior Congress leader said it was Antony’s principled stand against his family members getting undue privileges that estranged Anil, who had harboured political ambitions. Anil was keen to contest the 2021 assembly election from Cherthala, his father’s home turf. But Antony senior shot down the proposal.
“Anil had earlier eyed the Chalakudy Lok Sabha constituency. He along with his friend, Faisal Patel, former top Congress leader Ahmad Patel’s son, was involved in relief work in Chalakudy during the 2018 floods. But that proposal also met with a similar fate,” the senior leader told TNIE.
Then there were attempts by a section in the Congress to bring Anil on to the organisational scheme of things, but here too Antony pulled the plug. After all these snubbings, Anil slowly started withdrawing from the scene, culminating in his joining the BJP, the leader said.
KIRAN REDDY IS BJP’S LATEST ACQUISITION
New Delhi: The BJP’s Mission South ahead of the 2024 general elections got another push on Friday when the last CM of undivided Andhra Pradesh and veteran Congress leader N Kiran Kumar Reddy, 64, joined the party here. As many as 11 CMs of undivided Andhra belonged to the powerful Reddy community.
Kiran hails from Telangana’s Chittur district. Whether or not he will add value to BJP’s quest to make inroads in Telangana is unclear as analysts don’t see him as a political powerhouse. Kiran’s acquisition came a day after BJP inducted Congress veteran A K Antony’s son Anil.