More Telugu Desam men walk into TRS camp

Marking a clear beginning of erosion of the Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) cadre base in Telangana, hundreds of TDP workers from several districts including a handful of former legislators joined the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) here yesterday.

Prominent among those who switched over to the TRS include former TDP MPs M Rajaiah and Chandulal, former MLAs Pushpaleela, D Rameshbabu, Rajesham Goud, Madhusudan Rao, Pati Subhadra, Nimma Raji Reddy and B Rajaiah and former Zilla Parishad Chairmen Sumati Reddy and Laxmikanth Rao.

Efforts by the TDP to stop some of these leaders from joining the TRS has met with failure, which is a clear sign of the loosening grip of the TDP leadership over leaders at the lower rung. Unsuccessful TDP candidates who contested in the recent elections have also joined the bandwagon.

The former inspector general of police Chandrasekhara Reddy, who had resigned from the Indian Police Service, to contest for an Assembly constituency on a TDP ticket and Lingaiah who was defeated from the Siddipet parliamentary constituency are among those joined the TRS.

The most intriguing thing is that a majority of those who quit the Telugu Desam party to join the TRS today belong to TDP's core support base, the backward classes.

Another interesting development is that several of those who turned up at the 'join TRS' mela belong to districts like Adilabad, Ranga Reddy, Mahabubnagar where the TRS is either weak or a non-entity.

Inviting the TDP men with open hands, TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao said that a consensus among the eight and half crore people of Andhra Pradesh has already been evolved over the formation of a separate Telangana state.