Former Telangana Member of Parliament and Congress leader Konda Vishweshwar Reddy on Thursday June 30, announced that he will be joining the BJP. Reddy had quit the Congress last year, and is likely to join the BJP on July 1, a day ahead of the party’s massive national executive meeting in Hyderabad. BJP national General Secretary and incharge of party affairs in Telangana, Tarun Chugh, along with state BJP President Bandi Sanjay met Vishweshwar Reddy and invited him to join the party. Reddy is likely to formally join the BJP in the presence of party's national President JP Nadda in Hyderabad on July 1.
An engineer and entrepreneur, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy is the husband of Sangita Reddy, Managing Director of the Apollo Hospitals. Reddy, who was with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) before switching over to the Congress, had earlier stated that both the Congress and the BJP can't be an alternative to the TRS. He had also hinted at floating a new regional party with an aim to defeat the TRS in the 2023 Assembly elections, and was planning to bring together leaders of various smaller parties and even those TRS leaders who are unhappy with Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to form an alternative. There had been speculation for the past two years that Reddy would join the BJP.
Vishweshwar Reddy had fought and won the Lok Sabha elections from Chevella on TRS ticket in 2014. During his term, he was one of the richest serving MPs. He quit the TRS before the 2019 elections and joined Congress, and while he contested again from Chevella, he lost to the TRS candidate. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, Reddy has declared family assets worth Rs 895 crore, making him the richest politician in the two Telugu states.
As an engineer by profession, Reddy had worked as an adjunct faculty in the New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJ, and Essex County College, Newark, USA. He also founded Citadel Research & Solutions, a company involved in engineering research and development.