Former Telangana minister Jupally Krishna Rao, who switched over from Congress to Telangana Rashtra Samithi much before the bifurcation of the combined Andhra Pradesh, is contemplating returning to the Congress fold.
According to reports in a section of media, Jupally has been feeling completely neglected and insulted in the TRS, despite the fact that he had played a major role in the Telangana movement and made a lot of efforts for strengthening the TRS in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district.
Jupally, who represented Kollapur assembly constituency, was the minister in the K Chandrasekhar Rao cabinet in his first time and held the portfolio of civil supplies minister.
Since he hailed from Velama community as that of KCR, he had enjoyed a lot of clout in the party and the district.
In fact, Jupally was the only TRS leader those who days, who had directly challenged the authority of former Congress minister D K Aruna in the neighbouring Gadwal constituency.
However, Jupally’s graph has started falling down after his defeat in the December 2018 assembly elections in the hands of Congres candidate Harshavardhan Reddy. Within no time, Reddy defected to the TRS and KCR started pampering him, ignoring Jupally.
Though Jupally maintained his own group in Kollapur, he could not regain his glory as Harshavardhan Reddy became closer to KCR.
In the last municipal elections in Kollapur, the TRS leadership ignored the candidates recommended by Jupally and gave tickets to Harshavardhan Reddy’s people.
As a result, Jupally’s followers contested the municipal elections on behalf of Forward Block and won the seats. Since then, the TRS leadership has been sidelining Jupally, though it has not suspended him from the party.
Now, with the elections to the Telangana assembly just two years away, Jupally is compelled to decide on his political journey.
Though the Bharatiya Janata Party has consulted him for joining the party, he is not very keen because his arch rival D K Aruna has already been in the party and enjoying the position of BJP national vice-president.
So, the only option before Jupally is to return to the Congress. He is said to be in touch with Pradesh Congress Committee president A Revanth Reddy, who also hails from erstwhile combined Mahabubnagar district.
His followers, too, are said to be bringing pressure on him to go back into the Congress to sustain his political future.
