Former Telangana Minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MLA Talasani Srinivas Yadav on Thursday said that he would unite all communities classified as Backward Class (BC) in Andhra Pradesh, with just months left for the state to go for simultaneous Legislative Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.
The TRS MLA, who was addressing a press meet in Vijayawada, lashed out at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and said that a 'Yadava, BC Garjana' meeting would be held in Guntur soon, as a show of strength, to seek the welfare of the communities in the state.
Speaking to reporters, Talasani alleged, “The AP police tried to stall my press conference and threatened organisers. The intelligence department threatened the management of a hotel for giving me accommodation. Criticism is quite common in politics, but Naidu is not able to tolerate it. Naidu and Balakrishna toured my constituency and worked to defeat me. And now they are trying to obstruct my tours in AP.”
"A largescale misuse of public funds is going on in Andhra. The Naidu government is announcing a series of election sops but is ignoring actual problems. The Yadava community is being affected because the government is not willing to provide a guarantee for dairy development programmes,” he added.
Talasani, a BC leader, was elected on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket from Sanathnagar constituency in Telangana in 2014 but soon defected to the TRS. He was given a cabinet post by TRS President and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who allotted him the Tourism and Labour departments along with the additional portfolio of dairy development, fisheries and animal husbandry.
This decision to rally the BC vote bank in Andhra Pradesh comes days after the TRS said that KCR is likely to make an appeal to the people of Andhra Pradesh to back YSRCP chief Jaganmohan Reddy in the upcoming elections in the state, in exchange for the latter's support to the Federal Front, a consortium of regional parties being formed by the TRS President.
On the day that the TRS swept the Assembly polls in Telangana, KCR had hinted at a ‘return gift’ for TDP’s foray into Telangana politics. “To increase the respect of Telugu people and to make national politics better, we have to work together. Chandrababu Naidu came here and worked, should I not work there (Andhra) too? He came to us with a gift. We will return the gift. If I don't return the gift, he will say Telangana has no manners,” KCR had told reporters.