Going by the reports from the national capital of New Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party is planning to lure as many senior TDP leaders as possible in Andhra Pradesh at the earliest to gain a firm footing in the state.
According to sources, the BJP is looking at the areas where the TDP is vulnerable and is not a position to recover in the coming years.
So, the party’s first focus is said to be on Rayalaseema region, where the TDP has been more or less completely wiped out in the recent assembly elections.
While it has already lured industrialist-turned-Rajya Sabha member T G Venkatesh from Kurnool and another Rajya Sabha member CM Ramesh from Kadapa, former MLA from Dharmavaram in Anantapur district Gonuguntla Suryanarayana also joined the BJP recently.
Even former minister C Adinarayana Reddy is also contemplating joining the BJP and is said to be negotiating the deal with the saffron party.
There is also a talk that the family of former Anantapur MP J C Diwakar Reddy is also keen on joining the BJP.
Though Diwakar Reddy said he was retiring from politics, his brother Prabhakar Reddy and others are likely to join the BJP to protect their business interests.
The latest talk doing rounds in the political circles is that even Paritala family, which has been loyal to the TDP for several years, is planning to join the BJP sooner or later.
Since the TDP has no chances of recovering in Anantapur for the time being, there is no option for Paritala family – Sunitha and her son Sriram – to join the BJP if they want to sustain their hegemony in the region.
It is learnt Sunitha's son-in-law Vadlamudi Harsha is said to be in touch with the BJP leadership and it is only a matter of time that he will join the BJP. And if he does, the other family members also might follow suit.
Similarly, several TDP leaders in Chittoor and Kurnool are toying with the idea of joining the saffron party to survive in politics, sources said.
