After a brief lull, the talk of defections from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi into the ruling Congress in Telangana has started once again. According to the latest reports, another four BRS MLAs have sent feelers to chief minister A Revanth Reddy for defection into the Congress and preliminary discussions have taken place between these MLAs and senior party leaders. Sources said among these four MLAs, there is a senior MLA from Greater Hyderabad, whose name has been kept a secret; and the other three MLAs are Zahirabad MLA Manik Rao, Alampur MLA Vijayudu, and Boath MLA Anil Jadhav. Revanth has given the green signal for the three Telangana MLAs, but is skeptical about the fourth MLA from Greater Hyderabad, because of certain allegations of land encroachments against him.
Negotiations are going on with another three or four MLAs. Once they are finalized, all of them would be taken into the party at a time. Apparently, the Congress leadership wants to attract as many BRS MLAs as possible before the local body elections, which are likely to be held in October, so that the BRS will become weaker further. The BRS had won 39 MLAs in the last assembly elections and of them, one MLA died in a road accident and the seat vacated by her was bagged by the Congress. Another 10 MLAs have defected to the Congress over the last few months, bringing down the number of the BRS in the state assembly to 28.
