In a political development that is raising several eyebrows, Rajya Sabha member and senior leader of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Dharmapuri Srinivas, on Thursday, called on BJP President and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi.
This came a day after Srinivas, who had remained inactive in the TRS for close to two years, paid a surprise visit and attended a Parliamentary Party meeting of the TRS on Wednesday.
Srinivas' son, D Arvind, was recently elected as the Lok Sabha MP from Nizamabad, on a BJP ticket. It now remains to be seen if Srinivas will also follow suit.
In June last year, alleging that Srinivas was working against the party’s interest, TRS MPs and MLAs led by then Nizamabad MP K Kavitha wrote a letter to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to take disciplinary action against him.
In the four-page letter, the MLAs and MPs accused Srinivas, a former Congress leader, of creating several factions in Nizamabad and sabotaging the party from within. Calling him an ‘opportunist’ for inducting his son, Arvind, into the BJP, they accused him of sabotaging the party to ensure his son’s elevation.
“While his son is abusing the TRS MLAs and MPs in Nizamabad, rather than condemning him, Srinivas is standing by him. As he did not respect your integrity and is resorting to betrayal, do not wait and watch, instead take immediate disciplinary action against him," the letter stated.
“Party workers have brought to our notice many times that D Srinivas has been asking the cadre to work for another party. If he cannot control his family issues, the party will suffer in the future,” Kavitha, who is also the daughter of KCR, had told reporters at the time.
D Srinivas is a senior politician from Nizamabad. He was previously the president of the then Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee. He quit the party and joined the TRS in 2015, alleging that the Congress had sidelined him.