KARIMNAGAR: The Congress party, with its delay in announcing candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections, is proving to be quite a fertile ground for dissent and in-fighting. TPCC spokesperson Regulapati Ramya Rao, who on Tuesday met AP CM N Chandrababu Naidu at the secretariat in Amaravati, is the latest party leader to have caused murmurs of dissent and possible defection.
Ramya Rao, who is also the niece of TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, is married to Madhusudhan Rao, a founding member of the TRS who later fell out of KCR’s favour and exited the party. Ramya has been a member of Congress for the past few years. Since the Assembly elections was announced, she has been lobbying with party high command for the Karimnagar Assembly ticket. Her second choice is said to be the Vemulawada ticket. However, the party has made it clear that it wants Ponnam Prabhakar, a Telangana Congress heavyweight and former Karimnagar MP, to contest on the Karimnagar ticket. Since then, Ramya has dealt with her disappointment and anger in the most conspicuous way possible. At a recent district level party meeting, she got up during the middle of it and left saying that ‘the party isn’t giving me due importance.’
Speaking to Express about her visit to Amaravati, at first, Ramya insisted that it was purely of a personal nature. “I was in the city to attend a function with my husband Madhusudhan Rao,” she said. Later, when pressed about the details of her conversation with Naidu, she admitted that ‘political issues were discussed’. “Naidu advised me to not confine myself to Karimnagar. Since I was KCR’s niece, he told me, I should take on more responsibility and campaign for my party throughout the State,” she said.
Later, commenting on her aspirations, she said, “I want to contest from Karimnagar or Vemulawada, with the former being my first choice. I am positive that AICC president Rahul Gandhi will allot the seat to me. Anything can happen, I think.”
She added that she was disappointed by some Congress leaders having begun their campaigns even before the tickets were announces. As of now it is not clear why Ramya, a Congress leader, chose to meet Naidu, the CM of a neighbouring State and the chief of another party.