Ponguleti to meet Amit Shah on Jan 18, the day of BRS show in Khammam

KHAMMAM: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and former MP from Khammam Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy is believed to be meeting BJP strongman and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on January 18 amid speculation of his joining the saffron party. Interestingly, the appointment was reportedly fixed for the same day when BRS supremo K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) will be addressing a massive public meeting in Khammam in the presence of at least three Chief Ministers and other BRS sympathisers from across the country.

The meeting of Ponguleti with Amit Shah is believed to be coming on predicted lines and a formal announcement of the former MP switching to the BJP fold is also expected to be made soon after the meeting. Srinivasa Reddy, along with another senior party leader of Khammam Thummala Nageswara Rao, is widely speculated for sometime now to be scouring for viable political alternatives to stay afloat in the district politics.

As soon as the new year began, the two leaders dropped ample hints at their future plans. The speculation that Srinivasa Reddy was on the verge of leaving the BRS became evident from the comments he made during a meeting he organised with his group of well-wishers in Khammam district in the first week of January. Making no bones of his suffocation within the BRS, Srinivasa Reddy however made a cryptic comment that the new year would see newer developments.

Srinivasa Reddy was an MP from Khammam between 2014-18. He was originally elected on a YSRCP ticket but soon after the elections, switched his loyalties to the TRS. He was however denied a ticket in 2018 as the TRS leadership preferred another senior leader Nama Nageswara Rao from this constituency.

The timing of Srinivasa Reddy’s meeting with Amit Shah was being seen as a strategic move as it is being considered as a possible ploy to divert the attention from KCR’s public meeting in Khammam on the same day. At least three chief ministers – Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), Bhagwant Mann (Punjab) and Pinarayi Vijayan – besides former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh) and a few other prominent national leaders supporting the BRS cause are expected to take part in the public meeting. This will be the first major showpiece event of the party since its metamorphosis into the BRS from erstwhile TRS.