Telangana: Former MP Ananda Bhaskar Rapolu resigns from BJP, to join TRS

Hyderabad: Former Rajya Sabha MP Ananda Bhaskar Rapolu has resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s primary membership. He will soon be joining the ruling TRS.

In a letter to BJP national president JP Nadda on Wednesday, Ananda Bhaskar claimed that the Union government had “vigorously shown a step-motherly treatment towards Telangana and grabbed away several rightful opportunities from Telangana.”

He also stated that he had been ignored, humiliated, undervalued, and excluded from national roles for the previous four years.

The former MP, who urged the BJP to reconsider its stated position of ‘positive secularism,’ claimed that ‘awkward divisions’ were being promoted and that there was no tokenism in following the late AB Vajpayee’s advice on cooperative federalism. Most importantly, he said, “for reaping electoral benefits, terrifying and creating division” was now a hallmark of the party, and that despite his consistent follow-up on weavers’ issues, his requests were ignored.

Ananda Bhaskar also said that the GST on handloom products was harming weavers, and that the observation of welfare as a ‘freebie’ had shaken him to his core.