Perturbed Vivek waiting for auspicious day to join BJP

Hyderabad: Former TRS leader G Vivek Venkatswamy is likely to join BJP soon. Vivek met Union Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah in New Delhi along with party leader Ram Madhav on Tuesday.

This led to strong speculation that his entry into saffron party was just a matter of time.

Though on record it is being claimed that Vivek met Amit Shah to complain against the government's decision to demolish and construct new Secretariat and Assembly building, sources said that his meeting was to finalise a date to join BJP.

Vivek, son of former Congress leader G Venkatswamy, was first elected as MP from Peddapally in 2009 from Congress party. However, after the Telangana agitation, he joined TRS.

He rejoined Congress after Telangana was conceded by the Congress party in 2014 and contested from Peddapally Lok Sabha and lost to TRS leader B Suman. Later, Vivek joined TRS and was given the post of advisor to the government.

During the 2019 elections, Vivek expected a ticket from Peddapally but the TRS picked up B Venkatesh Netakani, who had joined the party from Congress.

Vivek was expected to join BJP but due to paucity of time for the elections, he postponed his decision to join the saffron party.

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He has been away from the party activities and formed his own outfit Prajaswamika Telangana under Venkatswamy Trust and has been vocal against the decisions of the TRS government. Finally, he has decided to join BJP and as part of this, he met Amit Shah on Tuesday, said sources.

Vivek, they say, was waiting for the month of Aashada to come to an end and would join BJP after that.

Vivek also gave a memorandum to the Union Home Minister and urged him to direct Governor ESL Narasimhan to invoke Section 8 of AP Reorganisation Act to protect government buildings in the State capital in wake of TRS government's decision to construct new Secretariat and Assembly in place of the existing ones.

Vivek said that the State government in 1998 listed Errum Manzil as archaeological site and the Archaeological Society also confirmed that the Errum Manzil was a heritage site in 2015.

But, the TRS government with mala fide intention removed the building from the heritage list, alleged Vivek. He said that the existing Assembly building was spread in an area of 10 lakh sqft area and it was catering to the needs of 294 MLAs and for the Telangana only 5 lakh sqft space was enough.

He wanted the government to direct the Governor to stop the demolition of existing buildings using the Section 8, wherein the Governor is custodian of Government Buildings and Law and Order until 2016) and save crores of public money.