In a setback to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Visakhapatnam South constituency legislator and party district president, Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar, shifted his loyalties by joining Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP on Saturday. Ganesh is a two-time MLA who won two consecutive terms during the 2014 and 2019.
On Saturday, Ganesh along with his two sons, YSRCP MP Vijay Sai Reddy, Vallabaneni Vamsi, and another TDP MLA from Vijayawada and others met Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy at his camp office in Tadepally.
Addressing the media, Ganesh said, “I am very happy to join YSRCP. I see Jagan as a synonym for courage, love, guts and compassion.”
Heaping praises on Jagan, Ganesh said that the Chief Minister declaring Visakhapatnam as the executive capital of Andhra Pradesh proves his ‘greatness’.
He also took a potshot at his parent TDP, saying that it may not return to power. MP Vijaya Sai Reddy who accompanied Ganesh said that TDP is losing its ground in Visakhapatnam and it would soon be wiped out.
“I am immensely happy that Ganesh and his family have joined our party. In future too, you will see many more people joining our party,” he said.
According to Vijaya Sai, Kumar's sons joining the YSRCP will strengthen the party. Vijaya Sai Reddy added that educated people from the TDP are joining the YSRCP looking at the developmental works carried out by the Chief Minister.
The MP cautioned that soon Chandrababu Naidu would lose the status of the Leader of the Opposition, too. “When there is no Opposition, how can there be an Opposition leader,” he ridiculed.
While Ganesh is yet to formally sever his ties with TDP, it is to be seen if Jagan would ask him to recontest from his constituency and join his party. Jagan had earlier stated that he would not encourage defections. “If any MLA from the opposition party wishes to join our party, he or she has to resign from the Assembly membership first. If the lawmaker doesn’t want to quit the MLA post, the Speaker can straightaway disqualify him or her,” Jagan had said in the Assembly soon after being elected as the Chief Minister in 2019.
With IANS inputs