In a big jolt to the ruling YSR Congress Party, its MPs Mopidevi Venkataramana and Beeda Mastan Rao on Thursday resigned from the Rajya Sabha.
The MPs met Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar in New Delhi and submitted their resignations. Both the leaders have also decided to quit the YSRCP and join the Telugu Desam Party.
Both the Mopidevi and Mastan Rao said they would like to work under the experienced leader and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for development in the state. Recently, they have met Naidu and showed their readiness to join the party.
The TDP is likely to re-nominate Mastan Rao to the Rajya Sabha whereas Mopidevi Venkata Ramana had reportedly agreed to join the TDP without any conditions.
This will help the TDP, which drew a blank in the last round of the elections to the Rajya Sabha, get back into the upper House.
TDP has 135 members in the 175-member Assembly and the rest are occupied by its allies: the Jana Sena and the BJP with 21 and 8 seats, respectively.
He was a minister in the cabinets of Jagan Mohan Reddy and his father Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. Although he lost the 2019 Assembly election, Jagan made him an MLC and included him in his Cabinet. He was Minister for Excise and Prohibition until June 2020, when Jagan Mohan Reddy dropped Mopidevi from the Cabinet and sent him to the Rajya Sabha the same month.
He had sought YRCP ticket for his son from Repalle Assembly constituency in the recent elections but was denied.
Mastan Rao had quit the TDP to join the YSRCP in 2019, a few months after the latter stormed to power. In 2022 Jagan Mohan Reddy rewarded Mastan Rao with a Rajya Sabha seat. Mastan Rao was elected MLA on a TDP ticket from Kavali in 2009 but lost the election in 2014. He unsuccessfully contested from Nellore Lok Sabha constituency on TDP ticket in 2019.
Meanwhile, reacting to the development, senior TDP leader and MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao described it as a sinking ship for the YSRCP. He said his party had already made it clear that those who want to join it should first quit their posts.
A day after Pothula Suneetha resigned as a member of the YSRCP and the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council, two MPs representing Rajya Sabha submitted their resignations. She is likely to join the TDP, a party she quit in 2020 to join the YSRCP.
In January 2021 by-election, the YSRCP nominated Suneetha and she was elected unanimously under the MLA quota. Eluru Mayor Sheikh Noorjahan along with her husband S.M.R. Pedababu resigned from the YSRCP and joined the TDP on Tuesday.
A number of key leaders quit the party in the last two months and joined TDP.
