Fmr MLA Veeraiah eyes MLC seat

 Bhadrachalam: Podem Veeraiah, the chairman of the Telangana Forest Development Corporation and a former Congress MLA, has redoubled his efforts to join the State Cabinet.

Following the announcement of the MLC elections under the MLA quota, he stepped up his efforts to win an MLC seat under the MLA quota and, in the event of an expansion, a seat in the Cabinet. Since he lost the 2023 election to the Bhadrachalam Assembly seat, Veeraiah has been urging the party leadership to appoint him to the Legislative Council.

According to reports, he is dissatisfied with his position at the corporation and is demanding that the MLC seat follow his seniority.Party sources claim that he brought this demand to the attention of Rahul Gandhi, the party leader, as soon as the Congress party took control by drafting a letter to the high command. There were rumors during the 2023 elections that Veeraiah might become a minister if he won. Veeraiah has been a Congress loyalist for more than thirty years of his political career and has never left the party.

Veeraiah was previously elected as an MLA from Mulugu. But in the 2018 elections, the Congress high command moved him to Bhadrachalam, where he won after only a few weeks of campaigning, because the Mulugu seat had to go to Seethakka.

Even if Veeraiah is elected MLC, the party officials believe it is improbable that the district will be granted another Cabinet seat because the former Khammam district had three ministers. However, his supporters claim that because of his party allegiance, the former MLA is determined to be appointed to the Cabinet. To make his position more clear, he has already traveled to Delhi. In the meantime, supporters of Veeraiah are contacting the media to express their support for their leader.

Speaking to the media recently, senior leader T Venkateswara Rao, the president of the Bhadrachalam Congress mandal party, urged Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and the party high command to induct Veeraiah and make him an MLC under the MLA quota.