Palvai Sravanthi resigns from Congress, set to join BRS today

HYDERABAD: In a setback to the Congress party in Munugode, party leader and AICC member Palvai Sravanthi, daughter of senior Congress leader and former MLA Palvai Govardhan Reddy, quit the party on November 11. She would be joining the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the presence of party working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) on Saturday.

In November 2022, Sravanthi contested in the by-elections on behalf of the Congress as an MLA from Munugode Assembly constituency after the sitting MLA Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy quit the Congress and joined the BJP. Sravanthi and Rajgopal Reddy were defeated by BRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy by a margin of 10,000 votes. In the by-elections, Sravanthi secured the third position with 23,906 votes.

Sravanthi was unhappy with the rejoining of Rajgopal Reddy into the Congress from the BJP. Earlier this month, she denied rumors of her resignation from the Congress. However, she quit the party after being disappointed with the party’s leadership as Rajgopal Reddy was given a Munugode ticket instead of considering her candidature for the upcoming Assembly elections. The Congress had openly violated its Udaipur Declaration with promise to provide one ticket per family and disrespecting the cadres who strived for the party and failed to get a ticket.

Sravanthi also wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi and MP Rahul Gandhi sharing her reason for quitting the party. “With a definite sense of conviction, and an experience that can even beat any empirical evidence, I can assert that the party's original persona in my state has been completely mutilated, and in its place, we see a commercial organization and a profit-making entity that ensures the party goes against the grain at every stage. This has rattled the spirit of many like me, and shattered the hope of any bright future, for individuals or the party. I consider this to be my holy duty to guide you into identifying these landmines that are about to burst soon, and completely decimate the party's prospects for good in Telangana,” Sravanthi wrote in her letter.