HYDERABAD: In a major jolt to the TRS ahead of the Munugode bypoll, former MP Boora Narsaiah Goud resigned from the pink party on Saturday and is expected to join the BJP in a day or two. Meanwhile, former MLC Karne Prabhakar, who met Minister KT Rama Rao, rejected reports that he too was planning to leave the party as “baseless rumours”.
In his three-page resignation letter addressed to TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao, Dr Goud said that while not getting the ticket to contest the byelection was not the issue, the fact that the party leadership did not take him into confidence in the selection of the candidate had hurt him. Stating that he wanted to suggest a BC as the TRS candidate, Dr Goud said that he felt insulted as the CM had been indifferent to his attempts to raise the issues of the weaker sections ever since he lost in 2019. His joining the BJP fold is being seen as a major boost for the saffron party in political circles. Dr Goud enjoys significant support of the BC communities who constitute around 80 per cent of the votes in Munugode.
With his departure from the TRS, voters from the Goud community, numbering over 40,000 in Munugode, may now be inclined to look favourably towards BJP. Not only that, BJP workers from the Goud community left Hyderabad for Munugode in large numbers on Saturday to campaign for BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy.
Spotlight shifts from Rajagopal’s contracts to Goud
This clearly gives BJP an advantage, as the discussion over the contracts awarded to Rajagopal Reddy, has suddenly been overshadowed by Goud’s exit from the TRS. This may work in favour of BJP at a time the campaign is gathering steam. Goud had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election to Komatireddy Venkat Reddy by a slender margin of 5,219 votes. He had insisted that he lost only due to TRS supporters pressing the EVM button for the bulldozer, that was allocated as a symbol for another candidate, mistaking it for the car, which is the TRS symbol. Goud also blamed infighting in the TRS for his narrow loss.
“Those who worked with you for days, months and years during the Telangana movement, they now feel that a much bigger movement needs to be waged to even meet you to discuss people’s issues,” Goud wrote to the TRS supremo. With a track record of selflessly serving the people of his constituency as a doctor, and also a person who has cordial relations with the leaders of various communities, Goud has maintained his image as a clean politician who has not been touched by controversies or allegations of corruption.
In his resignation letter, Goud said that decisions of the State government on Dharani portal, banning the registration of GP layouts, taking assigned lands of Dalits for layouts, diluting the federations of artisans, giving only 11 per cent fee reimbursement to poor EBC students among many others had damaged the reputation of the State government and the TRS.
He also said that while contractors from AP were flourishing, the total turnover of Telangana contractors was less than the Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) of AP contractors. “The State government not installing even a six-inch statue of Prof Jayashankar in Hyderabad has hurt the feelings of many. It’s unfortunate to see BCs being discriminated against economically, politically and in the education sector,” Goud wrote.
“I admire you and I’m thankful for the opportunities you gave me. But there is a difference between admiration and slavery.
At a personal level, even if I’m insulted, or not given an opportunity is fine. But when there is no scope for me to raise the issues of the poor and the marginalised sections, there is no point in continuing in the TRS,” the former MP concluded, adding that the people of Telangana were never going to accept political bonded labour.