HYDERABAD: Calling Congress a "party of Reddys,” former minister Danam Nagender, who quit it, announced that he was joining the ruling TRS on Sunday said, “Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been implementing various welfare measures for the wellbeing of people belonging to Backward Castes like the way the then chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy had introduced novel schemes for the upliftment of weaker sections.” He said after YSR, KCR is the only CM who is working for welfare of BCs.
Nagender, who had resigned from Congress on Friday, interacted with media on Saturday. He said that people from only one Forward Caste were getting posts in the Congress, while leaders from weaker sections were being side-lined. When repeatedly asked about the caste finding favour in Congress, he said, “You all know that Congress is dominated by Reddys. Being a BC, I have quit the party as Congress is not thinking about weaker sections who constitute more than 50 per cent of the State’s population.”
He claimed that BC leaders like D Srinivas and K Keshav Rao had joined TRS earlier from the Congress as they could not bear the injustice done to the weaker sections in the grand-old party. He said even after he had taken the issue to the notice of AICC president Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leadership had not rectified the mistakes.
Claiming that the TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy was working sincerely to revive the fortunes of Congress in the State, he accused the other seniors in the party of not allowing Uttam to strengthen it. “Some seniors in the party are in the habit of lodging complaints against Uttam with the AICC. Whenever the party’s electoral fortunes improve, at least ten senior Congress leaders go to Delhi for ouster of Uttam and claim themselves to be CM candidates,” he quipped.