Hyderabad: In a shot in the arm for the YSR Congress in the Rayalaseema region, Congress MP Ananta Venkatarami Reddy today joined the Y S Jaganmohan Reddy-led party here.
A Lok Sabha member from Anantapur, Venkatarami expressed confidence that the development of Seemandhra would be possible under the leadership of Jaganmohan.
Venkatarami is the latest among Congress leaders from Seemandhra who have joined either the Telugu Desam Party or the YSR Congress in recent times against the “unilateral” division of Andhra Pradesh.
Reddy’s switch over is expected to boost the party in the backward Anantapur district of Rayalaseema region.
Dubey, a Congress MLA, later said he was aware of the anti-defection law and “will resign from Jharkhand Assembly membership only after bringing down the Hemant Soren-led government”.
He was replying to a query whether he would resign from the Assembly membership after joining the TMC.
“MLAs Bandhu Tirkey and Chamra Linda too joined the TMC last week,” Dubey said.
Apparently to avoid disqualification from the Assembly, Tirkey’s Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch and Linda’sRastriya Kalyan Paksh a had merged with TMC on March 3.
Both the MLAs continue to support the ruling JMM- Congress-RJD coalition.
Dubey was aspiring to contest from Dhanbad Lok Sabha seat on Congress ticket but his name was not in the list announced yesterday.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren had on March 19 dropped Dubey from his Cabinet.
Dubey, who had been criticising the Soren government for sometime, was promptly replaced by Congress MLA K N Tripathi in the Cabinet.
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