Denied ticket to recontest Lok Sabha polls, TRS MP to join BJP

HYDERABAD: TRS sitting MP from Mahbubnagar, A P Jithender Reddy, who was denied party ticket to recontest from the seat, is set to join the BJP. It will be a homecoming for Jithender Reddy as he was earlier with the BJP having got elected on its ticket from Mahbubnagar in 1999.
The 65-year-old Jithender Reddy is expected to join the BJP in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an election public meeting in Mahbubnagar on March 29.D K Aruna, who recently switched to the BJP from Congress, is the BJP’s nominee from Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha seat. It is learnt that Jithender Reddy was in talks with the BJP and asked for a Rajya Sabha nomination from anywhere in the country. He was also learnt to have asked for a prominent role in the state leadership of the BJP as he had been associated with the party in the past.
These and one more condition was reportedly discussed with BJP general secretary Ram Madhav on Monday night. Jithender Reddy wanted that he also be accommodated in the Prime Minister’s helicopter to fly with him to Mahbubnagar for the public meeting. The BJP leadership, it is learnt, has not given him any assurance about that.
Asked about reports that he was joining the BJP, Jithender Reddy refused to discuss the matter. “I do not know anything about it,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that Jithender Reddy was abroad for 25 years before coming back to India and joined politics. He contested on the Lakshmi Parvathi’s NTR-TDP party ticket form Mahbubnagar and lost. In 1999 as BJP candidate, he won from Mahbubnagar and won against the then minster of state for defence Mallikarjun, who was a Congress candidate. He did not contest the 2004 polls but in 2009 contested from Chevella.
After chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced the candidature of Manne Srinivas Reddy as party candidate from Mahbubnagar, Jithender Reddy has said he would not leave the party though he was denied a seat. He explained that since KCR wanted to contest from Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha seat, he had shifted to Chevella and lost as TRS candidate from there. In 2014 elections, he got elected as TRS candidate from Mahbubnagar and was also floor leader of the party in the Lok Sabha.
It is learnt that KCR chose not to give Jithender Reddy the party ticket as party MLAs who got elected from the erstwhile Mahbubnagar district complained that he had not cooperated with them for their victory.