Hyderabad: As part of its strategy to focus on the Banswada legislative Assembly constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is holding a public meeting in Kamareddy district on Thursday.
BJP state president and member of Parliament from the Karimnagar seat Bandi Sanjay, and Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Aravind will also be the chief guests.
Both Sanjay and Arvind had given incendiary speeches during the recently held Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, it may be recalled.
The Banswada constituency is currently represented by the speaker of the Telangana Legislative Assembly and senior leader Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Pocharam Srinivas Reddy.
Srinivas Reddy’s sons Surender Reddy and Bhasakar Reddy have already began taking up major leadership roles in the party. Thursday’s public meeting holds significance as it marks BJP’s first step towards their plans of winning Banswada, and spreading beyond their urban pockets in Hyderabad, Bhainsa and a few other places of Telangana.
In a party meeting held earlier this week, senior leader and former MLA from Jukkal T. Aruna Tara announced that Congress leader Malyadri Reddy will be joining BJP on the day of the public meeting. Malyadri Reddy is a realtor and businessman and is quite popular in the region.
His plans of getting a ticket from the Congress during the last state elections was unsuccessful as the party favoured another leader, Kasula Balaraju.
Along with Malyadri Reddy, others set to join BJP today are Shankar Goud of Congress, Narla Suresh Gupta, market committee chairman of TRS and Kotthakonda Bhaskar, ex ZPTC of TRS.
Rumours are abuzz that many from the Congress cadres are keen on joining BJP. But a source from the Congress party, who wished to remain anonymous, rubbished these rumours. He said, “Please do not believe such news. Our party is still going strong in the constituency.”