Hyderabad: Prior to the November 3 voting for the Munugode Assembly byelection, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has been handed a blow with the resignation of Dr Boora Narsaiah Goud, a former MP from Bhongir. He plans to become a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Before deciding to switch allegiance, Dr Goud met with the BJP officials in New Delhi on Thursday evening (October 13). It’s interesting to note that on Thursday afternoon, he took part in the nomination process for Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, the TRS candidate for the Munugode bypoll.
After being involved in TRS activities during the statehood campaign in 2009, Dr Goud oversaw party operations in the Bhongir Parliamentary Constituency till he resigned in a three-page letter to TRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao.
The Goud community, to which he belongs, has significant support in the Munugode seat, and this is said to be a key factor in the BJP’s all-out campaign to win over Dr Goud, purportedly with the promise of a party ticket in the upcoming Assembly elections.
The TRS leadership was unprepared for Dr Goud’s defection since it had persuaded him by allaying his concerns. He was one of a select group of TRS leaders running in the Munugode by-election, but the party’s leadership decided to support Mr Prabhakar Reddy, who had previously won the seat in 2014 and lost it in 2018.
Dr Narsaiah Goud said in his letter to the TRS leader that while maintaining his active medical practice, he had participated in the statehood campaign under the direction of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC), of which the TRS was a significant partner.
As the Bhongir MP, he expended all of his efforts to secure approval for AIIMS, a Kendriya Vidyalaya, many National Highways, and other construction projects among others.
He claimed that internal party strife—a TRS-like electoral symbol—was to blame for his narrow defeat in the 2019 parliamentary elections and that he had endured insults from within the party, including being denied the chance to speak up for the issues of his constituency’s residents and other general problems that were harming the party.
Dr Narsaiah Goud claimed that the TRS administration had only supported persons from other areas/regions while making grand statements about helping Telangana people in various sectors. He said that he was leaving the party because he had had enough of the taunts and political servitude inside it.
