After several young and senior Congress leaders like P Karthik Reddy, Boda Janardhan and P Shankar Rao, it is now the turn of former Telangana chief minister Marri Channa Reddy’s younger son Marri Shashidhar Reddy to turn a rebel for the party.
Shashidhar Reddy, who represented Sanathnagar assembly constituency four times in the past and held several important posts like cabinet minister and vice-chairman of National Disaster Management Authority at the Centre, was denied the party ticket.
Instead, the Sanathnagar seat was allotted to the TDP as part of alliance and it fielded Kuna Venkatesh Goud.
Naturally, Shashidhar Reddy felt insulted.
“How can they deny party ticket to me? I have been struggling to sustain the party in the constituency for the last four years. As the chairman of PCC election commission affairs committee, I have been waging legal battle against the Election Commission exposing irregularities in voters’ list. It is because of me that the Telangana elections got postponed to December. Otherwise, they would have been held by now,” he said.
He alleged that PCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy submitted a report to the high command saying I had no chances of winning.
He declared that he was not going to support the TDP candidate, who is a liquor contractor and a rowdy sheeter.
“I am going to file the nominations as a Congress rebel. I will wait for a couple of days for the high command to respond, failing which I will take my own decision on my future course of action,” Shashidhar Reddy said.