Former minister Indrakaran Reddy quits BRS, joins Congress

Hyderabad: BRS suffered a setback with less than two weeks to go for the Lok Sabha polls in Telangana. Former minister and senior leader Allola Indrakaran Reddy resigned from BRS and joined Congress on Wednesday.

Indrakaran Reddy joined the long list of more than 20-odd key and senior leaders from BRS, who have quit the party and joined Congress in the last five months.

AICC in-charge for Telangana Deepa Dasmunshi welcomed Indrakaran and his followers to the national party fold at a programme held at Gandhi Bhavan in the evening. He sent his resignation letter to BRS president K Chandrashekar Rao on Wednesday. Unlike others who specify reasons for exit, Indrakaran Reddy just wrote one sentence in the letter informing about his decision to quit.

The 75-year-old leader suffered a big setback in the 2023 Assembly elections when he lost to Aleti Maheshwar Reddy (BJP) by a margin of 50,703 votes.

Indrakaran Reddy held the Endowments, Housing, Law, Forests and Environment, Science and Technology portfolios while serving two terms as minister in the KCR government between 2014-23.

A seasoned politician with over 40 years of experience in politics, Indrakaran Reddy has a good hold in his native, the erstwhile Adilabad district. His joining would definitely add to Congress's advantage in the Adilabad Lok Sabha seat, which comprises Adilabad, Sirpur, Asifabad (ST), Khanapur (ST), Mudhole, Nirman, Boath (ST) segments.

Triangular fight in Adilabad LS seat

G Nagesh (BJP), A Suguna (Congress), Attram Sakku (BRS) are fighting it out in Adilabad Lok Sabha seat that was held by BJP’s Soyam Bapu Rao between 2019-24. G Nagesh, who lost to Bapu Rao in the 2019 election, joined BJP and got the party ticket replacing the sitting MP.

Indrakaran Reddy’s party switch rumours floated towards the March end when MP K Keshav Rao announced all of a sudden that he was returning to his old party Congress leaving the BRS.

However, Keshav Rao only joined Congress with his daughter and GHMC mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi. However, nearly a month later, Indrakaran joined Congress officially confirming the rumours.

Political history

Indrakaran Reddy started his political career as the Adilabad ZP chairperson in the early 1980s. He was a two-time MP and four-time MLA between 1991-2023. His association with Congress is not new. He was earlier Congress MLA from Nirmal between 1999-2009.