Former minister and prominent Dalit leader Mothkupalli Narasimhulu has been unlucky in getting political positions, despite defecting from the Telugu Desam Party to the Bharatiya Janata Party and then recently to Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
After the formation of Telangana state, the TDP leadership promised Mothkupalli that he would be recommended for the post of Governor during the NDA regime. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not care for TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu’s recommendation.
He later spew venom at Naidu and defected to the BJP, but there, too, he was not given any post or position in the party. The state BJP leadership did not even bother to involve him in any of the party activities.
As a result, he was forced to jump into the TRS and praise chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, whom he had abused with strong words in the past. Initially, it appeared KCR gave him a lot of prominence.
During his visit to Yadadri, KCR took Mothkupalli along with him and gave him a lot of importance. Even at the high-level meeting on Dalit Bandhu, KCR made him sit beside him. This led to the talk that KCR is going to make Mothkupalli the chairman of Dalit Bandhu Mission.
But it did not happen. Mothkupalli also made extensive lobbying for the MLC seat under MLAs’ quota or the Governor’s quota or at least in the local bodies’ quota, but KCR, as is his won’t, completely ignored him.
Instead, last minute defectors like Padi Kaushik Reddy and L Ramana were given the MLC tickets. Not even that, Rajya Sabha member Banda Prakash was also made to resign from his MP seat and given the MLC seat.
This was naturally a shock to Mothkupalli. Yet, he has not given up his hope. He is now said to be lobbying for the Rajya Sabha nomination.
Two seats – that of D Srinivas and Capt Lakshmikanth Rao are falling vacant in April and there are going to be by-elections for another seat, which has fallen vacant due to resignation of Banda Prakash.
But there is already a long list of aspirants for these three seats – right from KCR’s close aide and ex-MP B Vinod Kumar, and two other former MPs – Sitaram Naik and Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, besides hardcore loyalists like Karne Prabhakar and Errolla Srinivas.
Since nobody knows what is there in KCR’s mind, an uncertainty prevails in case of Mothkupalli’s future.
