Former MLA and Telugu Desam Party leader from Vijayawada Vangaveeti Radhakrishna, who has been keeping away from active politics for quite some time, is said to be contemplating joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, if speculations doing rounds in a section of media are to be believed.
According to the reports, Vangaveeti is said to be in negotiations with Somu Veerraju, who recently took over as the Andhra Pradesh BJP chief. Since Veerraju is in the process of consolidating the Kapu vote bank, it is believed that he is trying to rope Vangaveeti into the party to strengthen the party.
It is not yet known how far there is truth in these speculations, but one thing is certain that he is not happy in the TDP which has not been showing any signs of recovering and regaining its glory.
Vangaveeti, son of prominent Kapu leader late Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga, had played active role in the YSR Congress party for a long time, before deserting the party and defecting to the Telugu Desam Party before the last elections.
He could not get the TDP ticket in the last elections, but continued to sail with the party during the elections. But after the defeat of the TDP, he had not been very active in the TDP activities.
In January, however, Vangaveeti surfaced again in the party for a brief period, when he took up the cause of agitating farmers of Amaravati and expressed his solidarity with women who had been allegedly subject to harassment by the police recently.
He also joined the agitation of TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu at Benz Circle and condemned Naidu’s arrest.
But subsequently, Vangaveeti once again went into the silent mode. There was a talk that he was planning to defect to the Jana Sena Party headed by actor Pawan Kalyan, after he met Jana Sena leader Nadendla Manohar.
He even had images of Pawan Kalyan on the flex boards at the death anniversary of Ranga in Vijayawada held in December last week. His followers also raised slogans in support of Pawan Kalyan.
Subsequently, there is no news about Vangaveeti’s plans to join the Jana Sena.
Now, if the latest speculations turn out to be true, he might join the BJP, which is a friendly party of the Jana Sena.