Ex-Telugu Desam Party leader and former MLA Beeda Masthan Rao joined the YSRCP in Tadepalli, Amaravati on Saturday, in the presence of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy. Masthan Rao resigned from the TDP on Friday, citing ‘personal grounds’. YSRCP National General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP V Vijayasai Reddy and Irrigation Minister Anil Kumar Yadav were also present, as Masthan Rao joined the party. 

Speaking to reporters after switching political parties, Masthan Rao showered praise on the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government for its implementation of welfare programmes announced during the election campaign. “I have always been loyal to whichever party I have been a part of. Since 1983, I have been with the TDP … I always obey the leader with discipline,” Masthan Rao said. 

Masthan Rao, a well-known BC leader from the Yadava community, is said to have been a close aide of TDP chief and former CM Chandrababu Naidu. He has served as MLA of Kavali Assembly constituency for two successive terms in 2004 and 2009, before losing to the YSRCP candidate in 2014. In 2019, he contested from the Nellore Lok Sabha seat from the TDP, losing to the YSRCP again. 

In October 2018, officials of the Income Tax Department raided the properties of Mastha Rao’s firm BMR Groups, a shrimp farming and exports company where Beeda Masthan Rao is the chairman. Around the same time, raids were also carried out in former TDP MP CM Ramesh’s residences and offices. Back then, the TDP had termed the raids as ‘political vendetta’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, with the support of the YSRCP.

In June this year, Ramesh and another formerly close aide of Naidu, YS Chowdary, joined the BJP, along with two other Rajya Sabha members of TDP. Chowdary, like, Ramesh, had also been the target of allegations of financial fraud, with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducting searches at his offices and residences.