HYDERABAD: In another jolt to the YSRCP, R Krishnaiah has resigned from the Rajya Sabha membership. He submitted his resignation to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar and the same was accepted by the latter.
He is the third YSRCP MP to resign from the Rajya Sabha after Mopidevi Venkataranama and Beeda Mastan Rao.
R Krishnaiah, who hails from Telangana, is the national president of the Nation BC Welfare Association. Though he was not associated with the YSRCP, the then Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy offered the BC leader a Rajya Sabha seat. Krishnaiah was elected to the upper house of Parliament on June 22, 2022. He has almost nearly four years of term left.
Sources said that Krishnaiah is all set to join the BJP. Sources also said that the BJP government at the Centre is likely to appoint him as a chairperson of National Backward Castes Commission.
Speaking to reporters in Hyderabad, he said that he sacrificed his Rajya Sabha membership for BC movement. He said: “BC movement went to peak stage. I will travel with the parties, which give support for BC reservations.”
He said that BC organisations have taken up a movement demanding increase in reservations in local body elections in Telangana for the past three months. “But, a few persons, organisations and parties are trying to undermine this movement,” he alleged. Recalling that that the Congress made a promise during the Assembly elections that it will conduct a caste census and increase reservations in local body elections, he said still the government did not fulfil the promise.