Habits die hard and they turn out to be dangerous sometimes. Most of the political leaders in the country today are bereft of principles and do not mind switching parties at the drop of a hat. Danam Nagender, Khairatabad MLA, stands first in this category. He defected from Congress to TDP, to Congress, to TRS, and then to Congress.
Now the BRS is very keen on taking action against the ten BRS MLAs who switched over to the Congress as soon as the latter came to power and Revanth Reddy became the chief minister. The case is pending with the Supreme Court which asked Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar to take appropriate action as soon as possible. The Secretary of Telangana Assembly, Dr. V. Narasimha Charyulu, issued notices to all the ten BRS defectors. The Speaker has been questioning the MLAs. He wrote to the apex court requesting an extension of time as he was otherwise busy and some MLAs were yet to be questioned. Prasad sent letters to Nagender and Kadiam Srihari once again. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy commented that the letters sent to the MLAs were part of the procedural process and the Speaker would do the needful.
Two MLAs Can’t Escape
Most of the defected MLAs have been arguing that they never defected to the Congress and they only met the chief minister in connection with the development works in their respective constituencies. It remains to be seen whether the Speaker would be convinced and whether he would be able to convince the SC. But there are two MLAs who cannot deny their defection.
One among them is former minister Danam Nagender. After defection, he contested in the 2024 general elections to parliament on a Congress ticket. The second MLA is Kadiam Srihari, former deputy chief minister, who got his daughter Kavya a Congress ticket and canvassed for her victory. Kadiam is not a frequent defector like Danam. But he quit the BRS after winning the Station Ghanpur seat in Warangal district on its ticket and joined the Congress. He and Nagender can hope to win again from their constituencies on a Congress ticket in the by-poll as a result of their resignation now. They are understood to be in touch with the Congress high command. They are planning to resign before the apex court acts against them.
Defections Galore
Danam Nagender was a Congress candidate in undivided Andhra Pradesh in the 1994 and 1999 elections from Asifnagar constituency and won both the times. As part of the Congress pact with TRS in 2004, he did not get a party ticket from Asifnagar constituency, which was allocated to the TRS. He took a decision in the middle of the night, joined the TDP and contested from Asifnagar as a TDP candidate, and won. Since Congress won in those elections and YS Rajasekhar Reddy became the chief minister, Nagender resigned from the TDP and the post of MLA and joined the Congress. In the ensuing by-elections, he contested as a Congress candidate and lost. As a result of the reconstitution of Assembly constituencies, he contested from Khairatabad constituency in 2009, won from there, and became a minister.
He was a minister in the YSR cabinet in charge of Health, Medical Services, Labour, and Employment. After the formation of Telangana State, Danam Nagender contested from Khairatabad in 2014 and lost to BJP candidate Chintala Ramachandra Reddy. In 2018, he contested again from Khairatabad constituency on a Congress ticket and defeated Ramachandra Reddy by way of revenge. But, since it was not the Congress but the TRS which formed the government, Nagender promptly left the Congress party and joined the ruling TRS, which became BRS by the time of the 2023 elections, in which Nagender was the BRS candidate. He won the elections along with many BRS candidates in the twin cities. But as luck would have it, it was the turn of the Congress to form the government. So as is the habit, Nagender was one of the ten BRS MLAs who joined the Congress. He did one extra thing by contesting for Lok Sabha on a Congress ticket. So much so, he cannot argue like the other eight MLAs that he never joined the Congress and only met the chief minister to discuss the development of his constituency.
On NTR Persuasion
Kadiam Srihari, who did his MSc from Osmania and worked as a junior lecturer, was asked by N. T. Rama Rao to join his party, the TDP. Srihari was Warangal district president of the TDP from 1987 to 1994. He won from Station Ghanpur Assembly constituency and became a minister in the NTR cabinet in 1994 and continued in Nara Chandrababu Naidu’s cabinet after 1995, handling education, Social Welfare, and Irrigation portfolios. Kadiam Srihari had to leave TDP as it was vacillating on the question of Telangana statehood and joined TRS, which was fighting with all its might for Telangana. He served as a Member of Lok Sabha from 2013. In June 2015, he resigned from Lok Sabha and got elected to the Legislative Council. He joined the Telangana cabinet in 2015 to become Dy. Chief Minister in charge of the education portfolio. He continued in that position till December 2023. In the last elections, he won from Station Ghanpur on a BRS ticket. Kadiam Srihari joined the Congress party along with the ten defected MLAs.
Compared to Danam Nagender, Srihari is a somewhat principled politician in the sense that he is not one of the “Aya Rams, Gaya Rams.” He switched parties only twice from TDP to BRS (TRS) to Congress in his long career of forty years. Political circles in Telangana are damn sure that both Nagender and Srihari are certain to resign and try their luck in by-polls rather than wait till they are suspended as a disciplinary action. They have burnt their bridges with the BRS and there is no point in lying to stay back in that party even if they are allowed by the party leadership.
Prominent Journalist
Dr. K. Ramachandra Murthy is a versatile journalist with a distinguished career. Dr. Murthy began his extensive career with Andhra Prabha of The Indian Express group in Bengaluru. He was editor of Udayam, Vaartha and Andhra Jyothy. Dr. Murthy founded and edited HMTV news channel and The Hans India, an English newspaper. He was also editorial director of the Telugu newspaper, Saakshi. He was awarded Ph. D for his research work in rural reporting. Dr. Murthy’s five decades in journalism showcases his influential roles across both print and electronic media. He wrote the political biography of NTR published by Harper Collins.
