Ghanta Srinivasa Rao meets Lokesh after YSRCP snub

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) senior leader and former minister Ghanta Srinivasa Rao, who has been keeping aloof from the party activities over the last couple of years, on Tuesday met party national general secretary Nara Lokesh here. The move is being seen as an attempt by the north Andhra strongman to once again cozy up to the party leadership from which he reportedly kept a safe distance.

The meeting between Lokesh and Ghanta Srinivasa Rao reportedly went on for over half an hour. It is learnt that Ghanta Srinivasa Rao was of late desperately looking to make amends with the TDP top leadership, especially in the wake of recent political developments concerning the north Andhra region.

Srinivasa Rao, who represents Visakhapatnam North Assembly constituency, has been in the news since the 2019 elections, largely for his speculated attempts to leave the TDP. Until recently, he was widely anticipated to switch his loyalties to the ruling YSRCP. He was believed to have made serious attempts in the last one year to get closer to the YSRCP leadership for this purpose. During all this period, Ghanta Srinivasa Rao not only distanced himself from the TDP political activities in Visakhapatnam district but even became inaccessible to the party leadership.

However, his grand plans came a cropper following the YSRCP leadership’s reported disinterest in accommodating the senior TDP leader in the north Andhra region due to prevailing political equations on the ground.

With the rejection from the YSRCP turning out to be a rude awakening and left with no other viable option, Ghanta Srinivasa Rao is learnt to have begun his machinations to once again cozy up to the party leadership.

Srinivasa Rao, who was initially with Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party, later became part of the Congress party following the merger of the PRP into it. He was also made a minister during the Congress rule from Chiranjeevi’s quota. Before the 2014 elections, he switched his loyalties to the TDP and eventually managed a ministerial berth in Chandrababu Naidu’s cabinet of the TDP-BJP alliance government. In 2019, he survived the YSRCP wave to get elected to the Assembly from the Visakhapatnam North constituency.