Former Speaker of United Andhra Pradesh, Nadendla Manohar has resigned from the Congress party and will be joining the newly formed Jana Sena Party at Tirupati on Thursday evening. Manohar who is the son of former AP Chief Minister Nadendla Bhaskara Rao spoke to local media, informing them of his decision, before departing to Tirupati to meet JSP chief Pawan Kalyan.

However, JSP party leaders are clueless about the latest developments. JSP party leader, Vijay Babu stated that they had no information regarding this development, “He has told media that he’d be joining our party. But our side has no such information.”

Though JSP leaders are surprised by his decision to join their party, it should be noted that Manohar had hinted earlier about quitting Congress and joining the party led by Pawan Kalyan. Four months ago, Manohar had met the JSP chief in Amaravati during his two-day tour in Vijayawada. During the meeting, he reportedly expressed his interest in joining the party.

Manohar was mostly restricted to occasionally giving press conferences and pointing out the flaws on the ruling TDP, but remained inactive in politics after the Congress faced a rout in the state. However, Manohar anticipated that the party would make him the AP Congress Pradesh Committee chief, but AP party in-charge Oommen Chandy wasn’t ready to change the leadership until the completion of 2019 elections. Vexed with Raghuveera Reddy still reigning the party, Manohar now seems to have taken the decision to join JSP.

Earlier there were rumours that Manohar would be joining the Jaganmohan Reddy-led YSRCP. But ending the speculations, Manohar has finally made clear his decision to join JSP. This move is certainly a blow to the Congress party who are just beginning to reforming the party by bringing in deserted leaders, like Nallari Kiran Kumar, to resurrect the fallen party and make in-roads at least by winning couple of seats in the 2019 elections.