Former Rajya Sabha member D Srinivas, who held several positions in the Congress party including the cabinet minister and Pradesh Congress Committee chief, is now a free bird, after completing his Rajya Sabha term on behalf of Telangana Rashtra Samithi recently.
While his elder son D Sanjay is now in the Congress party, his younger son D Arvind is a Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Nizamabad.
There were conflicting reports about the future plans of Srinivas – some said he would be returning to his parent party Congress while others said he would be joining the BJP.
But on Monday, the veteran leader sprang a surprise by holding a meeting with YSR Telangana Party president Y S Sharmila, daughter of former chief minister of combined Andhra Pradesh late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.
Sharmila came to the residence of Sriniva and enquired about his health. Both of them discussed the political situation in Telangana and he shared his experiences with her father late YSR.
He said the people of Telangana still admire YSR as a god and would definitely show the same love towards Sharmila.
“The people of Telangana will respond to her at an appropriate time in an appropriate way. And it will be a tremendous response,” Srinivas said.
In the same breath, he predicted that Sharmila would become the chief minister of Telangana one day or the other.
“In 2003, I openly declared that YSR would become the chief minister and it happened. With my decades of political experience, I can confidently say that Sharmila, too, will become the chief minister one day,” he predicted.
Sharmila said she had made a courtesy call to Srinivas, as he had worked closely with her father.
“An interaction with him will definitely help me in my political career,” she said.
Srinivas was all praise for Sharmila.
“She is an iron lady with a lot of will power. She has all the attributes of her father. Like him, she, too, will become the chief minister one day,” he asserted.
