After years of oblivion, Kiran Kumar Reddy resurfaces with Congress exit. Here’s what he means for BJP
Ending years of political oblivion, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday saying that its commitment towards the country’s development is “paramount”.
The former chief minister, who exited twice from the Congress in a decade, also highlighted the “deterioration” of the opposition party and that it does not want to do any course correction.
Reddy had taken over from K. Rosaiah, and served as the Andhra Pradesh chief minister from 2010 to 2014. A vocal critic of bifurcation, he was one of the few leaders to strongly oppose the creation of Telangana.
“My association with the Congress party is since 1962, my father (Amarnath Reddy) was also a Congress leader and a four-time MLA. Never thought I would have to leave the Congress party. But, the party’s position is deteriorating. Their vote share is shrinking, and they don’t want to do any course correction.
“The high command is making wrong decisions, and they do not want to take any feedback from people. They do not want to take responsibility for their losses,” Reddy said, adding that the Congress needs a ‘reality check’.
Kiran Reddy first exited from the Congress in 2014, when he resigned as the Chief Minister in protest against the party’s stand of a bifurcated Andhra Pradesh. The cricketer-turned-politician then floated his own party, Jai Samaikyandhra Party, which sank badly. Reddy himself did not contest in the polls.
The four-time MLA then re-joined the Congress in 2018 but was largely inactive.
Such was his opposition to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh that Reddy made the assembly pass a resolution opposing the central government’s draft Bill on bifurcation of the state.
In one of the press meets in 2014, Reddy showed a piece of rock claiming it to be a piece from the Berlin Wall and how people demolished it for a unified Germany in 1989. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana also have to be together, he had asserted.
