Veteran Telugu actor and former MLA Jayasudha has officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday, August 2. The BJP's general secretary and Telangana in-charge, Tarun Chug, welcomed her into the party during a program held at the BJP office in Delhi. Notable personalities like Union Tourism Minister and state BJP president G Kishan Reddy and party's national vice-president D K Aruna were also present at the event.
Jayasudha's decision to join the BJP comes after a recent meeting with Kishan Reddy, who formally extended the invitation to her. Speculations about her potential entry into the BJP had been circulating for the past year. Earlier, BJP MLA and former minister Eatala Rajender had also met Jayasudha and invited her to join the party. However, she had conveyed certain preconditions for her joining, which the BJP has reportedly agreed to meet.
The BJP is said to have assured Jayasudha of a party ticket in the upcoming Assembly elections, which are scheduled to be held later this year. She is likely to be fielded from the Secunderabad Assembly constituency, a seat she once represented.
The invitation to Jaysudha is part of BJP's efforts to woo leaders from various parties and well-known personalities to its fold to bolster its prospects for 2023 Assembly elections.
The actor, who played leading roles in many films in 1970s and 1980s, had joined politics at the invitation of Congress leader and then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy in 2009.
She was elected to Andhra Pradesh Assembly from Secunderabad constituency in 2009. She, however, could not retain the seat in the 2014 elections.
She had quit the Congress to join the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 2016 but remained largely inactive in it.
In 2019, she along with her son Nihar Kapoor had joined YSR Congress Party headed by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, who became Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh the same year.