Aaya Ram Gaya Ram: List of Politicians who switched parties before the AP elections

Vijayawada: With five MPs of the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) switching allegiance after being refused tickets by their respective party leadership, political tensions in Andhra Pradesh are rising ahead of the announcement of the date of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Along with the YSRCP, one Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MP resigned from the party, while another MP made the decision to give up politics and abstain from the next elections.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the YSRCP won 22 seats and the TDP managed to win only three seats. Five MPs from the YSRCP– S Sanjeev Kumar (Kurnool), Lavu Sri Krishnadevaraya (Narasaraopeta) Vallabhaneni Balashowry (Machilipatnam), Kanumuru Raghu Rama Krishnam Raju (Narsapuram) and Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (Ongole) quit the party which would be a setback to the YSRCP ahead of the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

YS Jagan's social engineering agenda and the denial of tickets based only on the winnability factor have caused anger among candidates who wished to hold onto their seats. Of the five MPs, Sanjeev Kumar was the first to quit the YSRCP on January 10 and alleged injustice meted out to leaders from backward classes in the YSRCP. So far, he did not join any party and sources said that Sanjeev Kumar would join the TDP soon.

Another MP, Vallabhaneni Balashowry resigned from the party on January 13. He took the decision after he was reportedly denied a ticket in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. On February 4, Balashowry joined the Jana Sena party in the presence of Pawan Kalyan. After Balashowry, Narasaopet MP Lavu Sri Krishnadevarayalu resigned from the party on January 23.

In an attempt to field a candidate from the backward classes communities (BC) in the Narasaraopet Lok Sabha seat, chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy recommended Sri Krishnadevaraya to contest from the Guntur Lok Sabha constituency in the forthcoming elections. Krishnadevarayalu, however, declined the offer and asked the chief minister to give him permission to either leave Narasaraopet or continue working there.

The YSRCP leadership had appointed Nellore MLA and former minister P Anil Kumar Yadav, a BC leader as an in-charge for Narasaraopet Parliamentary constituency. Krishnadevarayalu announced that he is going to join the TDP shortly and contest from Narasaraopet. On February 24, Kanumuru Raghu Rama Krishnam Raju, another MP, left the party.

However, even after six months of victory, Raghu Rama Krishnam Raju began to diverge from the YSRCP leadership on a number of important topics and began to withdraw. Sources said that Raghu Rama Krishnam Raju is likely to join the TDP soon. The fifth MP to resign from the YSRCP is Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy from Ongole. He quit the party on Wednesday and asserted that he decided to field his son Magunta Raghava Reddy as an MP candidate in the elections. Raghava Reddy is an accused in the Delhi Liquor policy scam.

When it comes to the TDP, Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas Nani quit the party on January 10 and stated that he would do anything for Vijayawada. Kesineni Srinivas contested as an MP from Vijayawada Lok Sabha constituency in 2014 and 2019. He was reportedly disappointed after the TDP leadership is considering his brother Kesineni Sivanath Chinni’s candidature for the Lok Sabha elections from Vijayawada. After joining the YSRCP, Jagan appointed him as the incharge for Vijayawada Parliamentary constituency.

On January 29, another MP from Guntur Galla Jayadev announced that he is quitting politics for the time being and decided to stay away from the ensuing elections. The TDP which was aligned with the Jana Sena party recently decided to share three parliament seats with them. With this, the TDP would field its candidates in 22 parliament seats, where almost three MPs who won from the YSRCP in the 2019 elections and shifted their loyalties to the TDP will face the YSRCP candidates in the ensuing elections.