KHAMMAM: In what may come as another major jolt to an already weak Congress party in Telangana, its Bhadrachalam MLA and Bhadradri Kothagudem DCC president Podem Veeraiah is planning to leave the grand-old party and join the ruling party.
According to sources close to the DCC president, though the doors to the pink fort has always been open for Veeraiah, he had not considered leaving Congress till now; even after several of its MLAs switched loyalties to TRS soon after the 2018 Assembly elections.
However, the Bhadrachalam MLA has been upset with the party leadership and its decisions for quite some time. The party leadership’s slow response to the incident in which the MLA was booked for distributing essential commodities in his Assembly constituency during the lockdown, made him rethink his decision, he felt the Congress leaders turned a blind eye to the incident because he hailed from a Tribal community, sources told Express.
Since then, the DCC president has been keeping himself away from all Congressorganised public functions. If Veeraiah stands firm on the decision, the party’s overall MLA head count in the erstwhile district would fall to one, which was six after the 2018 polls, and Mallu Batti Vikramarka would be the sole leader left with the district committee.