BRS Lok Sabha member Venkatesh Netha joins Congress

New Delhi: Defections ahead of Lok Sabha elections have started in Telangana on Tuesday with BRS MP Venkatesh Netha joining the Congress, a party which he left five years ago for the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led party.

Along with Netha, who represents Peddapalli Lok Sabha constituency, Manne Jeevan Reddy also joined the Congress. Reddy is related to BRS Mahboobnagar MP Manne Srivinivas Reddy.

Both joined the party in the presence of Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka. The new inductees also met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.

Venugopal said in a post on ‘X’, “welcomed Peddapalli MP Venktesh Netha garu, Manne Jeevan Reddy gaaru and other BRS leaders into our party today. Our party is growing from strength to strength and leaders from across Telangana are recognising the Congress as the one true vehicle of pro-people governance.”

Sources said Netha will be fielded from Peddapalli again, as the party finds that it does not have a popular Dalit face to be fielded from the reserved seat.

Netha, a former government official, had fought the 2018 Assembly elections on a Congress ticket and had lost the battle. However, he switched to BRS ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Rao gave him the ticket to fight Peddapalli.

Congress sources said they are expecting a couple of MPs to desert and join the grand old party.