Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu has called upon MLAs, fomer MLAs and other leaders who had deserted the TDP and joined other parties to come back to the Telugu Desam.
Naidu made this appeal at his party office here on Monday while welcoming former Gudivada MLA Raavi Venkateswara Rao and a large number of his supporters from Krishna district into the party.
Before joining the party, Raavi had held talks with Naidu at his residence in the presence of film actor N.Balakrishna. Declaring that the party would field Raavi in the next Assembly elections, Naidu said the Congress and several leaders had been trying to destroy the TDP ever since its inception by engineering defections from it.
“The TDP has braved all machinations and emerged much stronger in the 30 years of its existence Moreover, it has come to power several times and provided good governance to people.
If one leader leaves it, the party has the strength to produce a hundred more,’’ Naidu said in a voice tinged with emotion. Describing the YSR Congress Party as an offshoot of the Congress, he alleged that the fledgling party was trying to lure TDP MLAs and leaders with money.
Though only Gudivada MLA Kodali Venkateswar Rao desrted the TDP to join the YSRCP, not a single TDP activist did not quit the party, Naidu claimed.
“In last 30 years several parties emerged on the state’s political scene and all of them merged into the Congress. While Chiranjeevi merged his Praja Rajyam with the Congress, another political party is bargaining with the Congress and its honorary president has openly acknowledged the possibility of merger.
’’ Naidu dismissed reports that he had held secret political talks with prime minister Manmohan Singh during his recent Delhi visit and declared that TDP would continue its fight against Congress.
The state government failed to get sufficient funds from the Centre for drought relief to the astonishment of Union ministers like Sharad Pawar, he said. TDP’s Krishna district president D. Umameheswara Rao and Machilipatnam MP A Narayana Rao also spoke