HYDERABAD: Another Congress MLA, Haripriya Banoth (Rambai), decided to join the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Sunday, bringing the total number of defections from the grand old party to four. Haripriya represents the Yellandu (ST) Assembly constituency, a part of Khammam district.
So far, Athram Sakku, Rega Kantha Rao and Chirumarthi Lingaiah from the Congress and Sandra Venkata Veeraiah from TDP have joined TRS. With this, the strength of the ruling party in the Assembly touches 96, including nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson. TRS has the support of seven AIMIM MLAs. So TRS and AIMIM candidates in the Legislative Council elections will have the votes of 103 MLAs, against the 105 votes required to win all five seats up for grabs.
In a statement on Sunday, Haripriya Banoth recalled that she recently called on Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and discussed about the development of Tribal areas. “During the discussion, KCR’s spoke only about development. I did not sense any selfish politics in his words. I was enthralled with his vision,” she had said in her statement.