Former Telangana Congress president Ponnala Lakshmaiah joined the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) on monday, days after he resigned from the grand old party.
Lakshmaiah was inducted into the BRS at a public meeting in Jangaon in the presence of party president and chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao.
Lakshmaiah quit the Congress on Friday citing “unjust environment”in the party.
In his resignation letter to party national president Mallikarjun Kharge, the senior politician alleged that when a group of 50 leaders from the backward classes (BC) in Telangana went to Delhi to request prioritisation for BCs, they were denied even a meeting with AICC leaders, which is an embarrassment for the state that prides itself on self respect.
He further alleged that the grand old party has seen a shift in its core ideology and individualism seems to have taken precedence over our collective strength within the party.
On Saturday, BRS leader and Telangana minister K.T. Rama Rao met Lakshmaiah at the latter’s residence in Hyderabad and invited him to the party.
"We invite Ponnala Lakshmaiah to BRS. We will give him a suitable position in the party. He will meet the CM tomorrow. He might join BRS in a public meeting to be held at Jangaon on October 16," Rama Rao had said while talking to reporters after the meeting.
The resignation of Lakshmaiah has come as a major setback to the Congress ahead of the Telangana assembly elections due on November 30.
The state will witness a three-pronged fight between the ruling BRS, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.