Exactly six months after resigning from the YSR Congress party, senior leader and MLC Marri Rajasekhar got the clearance from Telugu Desam Party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu to join the ruling party.
Rajasekhar, who also hails from Kamma community, would join the TDP later in the Friday evening. He will formally don the party’s yellow scarf in the presence of Naidu at the latter’s residence.
A former MLA from Chilakaluripet assembly constituency in Palnadu district, Rajasekhar resigned from the YSRCP as well as from his legislative council membership on March 19.
The Legislative Council chairman Koyyye Moshen Raju, however, has not yet accepted his resignation from the MLC seat.
Rajasekhar’s exit is part of a series of resignations from the YSRCP following the change in the government.
Six MLCs — Jayamangala Venkataramana, Pothula Sunitha, Balli Kalyan Chakravarthy, Karri Padmashree, Rajasekhar and Zakia Khanam — have now resigned.
A longtime YSRCP member, Rajasekhar contested the 2014 Assembly elections from Chilakaluripet but lost to TDP’s Prattipati Pulla Rao. He later accepted an MLC post from YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Despite being associated with the YSRCP for quite a long time and having been made a regional coordinator of the party, Rajasekhar is said to have quit due to lack of recognition in the party, repeated unfulfilled promises by the party president.
Particularly, he was not happy with the way Jagan was giving prominence to former minister Vidadala Rajini by making her as the in-charge of Chilakaluripet.
He realised that he has no chance of becoming the MLA again. Hence, he chose to join the TDP.