Veerraju supporters veer away from BJP

Rajamahendravaram: The appointment of former minister Kanna Lakshminarayana as state unit president of the BJP kicked up a political storm in the party on Monday with aspirant for the post MLC Somu Veerraju's supporters quitting their party posts in his native East Godavari district, questioning the rationale of the party national leadership in appointing someone who is an outsider to the party and who does not have the mandatory RSS background.

Lakshminarayana’s appointment came like a bolt from the blue for Veerraju’s supporters who had thought that their leader's anointment as chief of the party in AP was a fait accompli. When the news broke out, they realised that they were living delusions and vented out their spleen at the party high command for choosing someone who was about to leave the party and join the ranks of the YSRCP.

They argue that Lakshminarayana was a recent addition to the party as he joined them only in October 2014, after he realised that the Congress, which had been dealt a mortal blow by the people of AP, would never acquire life in future.

Ever since the announcement that Lakshminarayana would be the AP unit BJP chief came on Sunday, Veerraju has remained incommunicado even as Bommula Dutt, president of the BJP Rajamahendravaram unit fired the first salvo by resigning to his position. The entire executive followed suit.

Meanwhile, party district president Y Mala Kondaiah demanded that the party high command should reconsider its decision, or the district unit would quit en masse. Veerraju's supporters who are in all districts dashed off letters to the party high command to reconsider its decision and appoint their leader to the post.

Veerraju was the hot favourite for the post for a long time as the incumbent K Haribabu had served the party for more than two terms. But, in view of the change in perception that Lakshminarayana is a better bet in consolidating the Kapus who are believed to constitute 20 per cent of the population appears to have weighed against Somu Veerraju, though he too belongs to the same caste.

The party did consider former minister Pydikondala Manikyala Rao but as he is as gentle as a lamb and as he is poor in resources, which traits would not help one in politics, his candidature too was kept on the back burner.

BJP Rajamahendravaram president Bommula Dutt, after resigning said: "The party high command shattered the dreams of the party in the state, by setting aside a senior leader of the party who had fought a long battle with Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. Veerraju has been serving the party for more than three decades but no weightage was given to his service either.”

Sources said the party national leadership had thought that if either Manikayala Rao or Veerraju is made the president the other group would be working cross purposes and if a third leader is brought in, both the groups would have a feeling of comfort that the other group had not been considered. But this strategy seems to have boomeranged, at least for now.

Lakshminarayana, who is in Delhi attending the BJP state presidents' conference, told media-persons that he would take all sections in the party on board while working for the growth of the party.

By appointing Lakshminarayana, the party has made it clear that it was eyeing the Kapu vote bank in coastal districts and that it does not want to remain as an appendage to any party like it did when it was with the TDP.

Now that the BJP, which is still considered an underdog in the political battlefield, is now trying to stand up to its opponent TDP and in the process it might get the covert support of Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan and that of the Kapu patriarch Mudragada Padmanabham.