Thirty-five leaders from the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana on Monday joined the Congress months ahead of Assembly elections in the state, reported PTI.
Assembly elections in Telangana are expected to be held in or before December.
Among those who joined the Congress on Monday were former MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and former minister Jupally Krishna Rao. Earlier in the day, they met with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leaders Rahul Gandhi and KC Venugopal in New Delhi.
Other leaders who joined the Congress include six-time former MLA Gurnath Reddy, former-MLA and Zila Parishad Chairman Koram Kanakaiah, former MLA Payam Venkateshwarlu, District Cooperative Central Bank’s former chairperson Muvament Vijaya Baby, reported The Indian Express.
Congress leader Pawan Khera termed the development as “winds of change”.
“These winds of change started with ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, the effect of which you saw in Karnataka,” Khera said. “Today, many important leaders of Telangana are joining the Congress party, and all of them have held long talks after meeting top leaders of the party.”
Gandhi also welcomed the development and said that the Congress in Telangana will repeat its success in Karnataka.
“A united Congress is unstoppable,” Gandhi said in a Facebook post. “An era of people-centric politics will sweep through Telangana soon, like it did in Karnataka.”
The Congress had secured a clear majority in Karnataka, winning 136 of the 224 Assembly seats in the state.
In Telangana, the Congress will seek to wrest power from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, which has ruled the state since 2014.
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