TDP president and former Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, who faced humiliation in Rajya Sabha elections by fielding Varla Ramaiah despite knowing that he would lose the polls, received yet another shock.
Naidu’s plan was to expose the three rebel MLAs – Gannavaram MLA Vallabhaneni Vamsi, Chirala MLA Karanam Balaram and Guntur (West) MLA Maddali Giridhar by issuing a whip and see that they defied it, so as to get them disqualified from their assembly membership.
However, four TDP votes have become invalid, while two others – Atchen Naidu and Anaganai Satyaprasad – couldn’t vote for their own reasons.
Since Rajahmundry MLA Adireddy Bhavani gave an explanation to Naidu saying her vote had become invalid as she made a technical mistake.
So, Naidu thought the three remaining invalid votes could be that of the three rebel MLAs who deliberately made their votes invalid to avoid being disqualified. He asked his party leaders to launch an attack on the rebels.
But one of the three rebels – Maddali Giridhar – gave a rude shock to Naidu saying that he had, indeed, voted for Varla Ramaiah, as he was a good friend and a Dalit leader.
“I did not get any whip from the TDP leadership, but still I voted for Varla Ramaiah only because of the respect that he is a senior Dalit leader,” Maddali said.
He wondered why Naidu had not given the party ticket to Varla Ramaiah when the party had chances of winning RS seats in the past but fielded him only when there are no chances of winning.
“It was very clear that he had given Rajya Sabha tickets in the past to leaders for a big money,” he said.
If what Maddali said is believed, then Varla Ramaiah would have got 18 votes. But he got only 17, which means there is another TDP MLA whose vote had become invalid. This is further embarrassment to Naidu.
Unlike Adireddy Bhavani, this MLA whose vote has become invalid has not come out yet. So, Naidu has to find out who that black sheep is.
