As many as nine government teachers had to face suspension from their jobs in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.Reason: they had gone to Vizianagaram on Sunday to take part in Praja Sankalpa Yatra, the marathon ‘padayatra’ being undertaken by YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.

The teachers, belonging to Bhimili, Padmanabham, Anantagiri and Anandapuram mandals, went to Vizianagaram to submit a memorandum to Jagan asking for removal of the contributory pension scheme which has been in force in the state.After taking a memorandum from them, Jagan said he would definitely take steps to do away with the scheme, as soon as the YSRC comes to power in the state and he became the chief minister.

The jubilant teachers, as part of thanksgiving gesture, walked along with Jagan for some distance and expressed their solidarity with him.Reports in a section of media said the teachers had raised slogans in support of Jagan and said they would strive for his victory in the next elections.Naturally the Chandrababu Naidu government got angry on seeing the reports.

Following instructions from the higher ups, district educational officer Lingeshwar Reddy issued orders suspending these nine teachers.“As per the service rules, the government employees are not supposed to take part in any of the political rallies and programmes,” the DEO said.

The ‘secret’ pujas performed by power star and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan at Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Jagannathapuram of Dwaraka Tirumala mandal in West Godavari district in the early hours of Monday led to a lot of speculations and rumours in the mainstream media as well as social media.Had Pawan performed the pujas during the normal temple hours, there would not have been any secret about them. He would have got a lot of media attention as well.

But the manner in which Pawan performed at the temple from 3 am to 4.30 am naturally led to several rumours.While a section of media said Pawan had only performed special pujas and abhisekham at the temple, some sections of social media went to the extent of predicting that he must have performed some “tantric pujas,” since normally, no pujas would be performed at such odd hours unless there is some specialty to these pujas.

With these “secret pujas” kicking up controversy in the media, the Endowments Department authorities sought an explanation from chief priest Suryaprakash Sastry as to why these pujas had to be performed at such an early hour, when the temple was supposed to be opened only after 5 am for darshans and regular worships.The priest reportedly gave a written explanation to the authorities stating that he had to conduct the pujas only on the request of Pawan Kalyan.

“It was an unscheduled visit by Pawan Kalyan to the temple. He requested that he would perform pujas in the early hours, as he did not want to disturb other devotees,” the priest said.Apparently, Pawan felt that if he had given prior intimation about his visit to the temple during the normal temple hours, it would have leaked to his fans and common people, who would have thronged the temple in large numbers to see him.

“He did not want any such commotion in the area that might lead to law and order issue. So, he came to the temple early and I had to violate the temple rules to concede his request,” the priest said.Not a bad explanation from the priest, but on Tuesday Pawan performed special pujas at Maddi Anjaneya Swamy Temple at Gurvaigudem only after sunrise. He did not face any security issues or troubles from his fans or other devotees.

So, the excuse shown by him for performing early pujas at Narasimha Swamy temple the previous day does not hold any waters!

Following the IT raids at Telangana Congress Working President A. Revanth Reddy’s residence, the Telangana Congress is going full throttle to attack TRS Chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao’s family. Soon after dissolving assembly, KCR’s son KT Rama Rao has been vocal in criticising the Congress and TDP, subtly raking up the Telangana sentiment again.

Now, the Congress has picked up the same trend and is launching counter-attacks on KTR after his recent comments, criticising the Congress-TDP alliance. Revanth Reddy has raked up a new controversy alleging that KTR’s father-in-law falsely obtained an ST certificate and got a job as in the forest department.

“If KTR’s father-in-law is ST, is KTR’s wife a ST too? People need a clarification on whether she is Adivasi or Lambada,” said Revanth Reddy in a meeting today. Similarly, Congress has also stated that KCR’s daughter and Nizamabad MP has stated in her election affidavit that she has no children. As a matter of fact, Kavitha has two sons.

As the election season hots up, it appears that verbal attacks and counter attacks against TRS will only increase.

Sanchaita Gajapathi Raju, niece of senior TDP leader from Vijayanagaram, Ashok Gajapathi Raju has joined BJP. This development seems to have surprised many in the political circles as the Gajapathi Family has been loyal to Telugu Desam Party.

Sanchaita joined the party in the presence of BJP’s state president Kanna Lakshminarayana, Kambhampati Haribabu and Daggubati Purandeswari. Sanchaita is the daughter of former TDP leader Anand Gajapathi Raju and Uma Gajapathi Raju.

She is also the founder of an NGO called Social Awareness Newer Alternatives (SANA) that works on sanitation in rural India. She is also the winner of Google Impact Award and has been a popular figure fighting on sanitation-related issues across the world.

It is a known fact that power star and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan had played an instrumental role in preventing YSR Congress party to come to power and bringing the Telugu Desam Party-Bharatiya Janata Party combine to win the 2014 assembly elections.Now that Pawan has raised a banner of revolt against TDP president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, he has taken a vow not to allow the TDP to come to power again.

“There is no questioning of allowing Naidu to come to power in the state again in 2019 elections. I will go all out to defeat him and his party.He is once again coming before you with tall promises like granting of loans to farmers and DWCRA groups. Don’t believe him and get carried away by his fake promises,” Pawan told a large gathering of DWCRA women at Gurvayigudem in West Godavari district.

Stating that DWCRA scheme was not the brainchild of Naidu, Pawan said the TDP president never had the support of women.“He would not have lost power in 2004 and 2009, if he really had the support of the women. He would not have come to power, had I not campaigned for him and his party in 2014,” he said.
Interestingly, Pawan said even YSR Congress party would not be able to come to power in 2019.

“YSRC president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy cannot become the chief minister this time. You are going to see emergence of a completely new political regime in the next elections. The political equations are changing and a new political culture would emerge,” he predicted.The Jana Sena Party did not make any comments against the BJP. May be he is hoping that he would be able to come to power with the support of the BJP!

Despite the attempts of Revanth Reddy to portray the Congress as a Reddy party and TRS as a Velama bastion, by and large, the Reddy community in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as well, largely seems to be in favour of KCR coming back to power according to reports of the Intelligence Bureau.

And the reason isn’t because KCR has delivered astounding results as a Chief Minister.The Reddy community of Telangana had always been followers of YSR and following his death, they backed YS Jagan. But they could not support him politically because of the Telangana agitation.Although the State may have been bifurcated, there are still a huge number of die-hard YSR loyalists in Telangana among many sections of the poor who had benefitted immensely from the welfare schemes of YSR.

The Reddys are especially keen on KCR coming to power again as they believe that if the Congress-TDP alliance comes to power, they will create further hurdles for YS Jagan regarding the Court cases. Comparatively, KCR is more favorably inclined to YS Jagan.

The Reddys feel that Revanth is merely acting on the instructions of Chandrababu Naidu who is increasingly losing ground by the day to YS Jagan.Chandrababu still calls the shots in the judiciary and he allegedly has a good number of them in his pocket.

It is precisely for this reason that he has not allowed the separate High Court to come up in AP. If that happens, YS Jagan’s cases will then be tried in Hyderabad where he will no longer have any clout and KCR will call the shots.

Therefore, the Reddys of Telangana will support KCR in the best interests of YS Jagan.

Advocate Rachana Reddy shot to fame by being highly vocals against the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government in the last couple of years. Very recently she has joined professor Kodanda Ram’s Telangana Jana Samithi party (TJS) and she is willing to contest the upcoming elections.

Rachana Reddy hails from Yellareddy of Kamareddy district and TJS is planning to field her from the same constituency. The party is also stubborn for the Yellareddy ticket. Except for this constituency, candidates for the rest of the constituencies in Kamareddy district are almost finalized.

But with Congress, TDP, TJS forming alliance, the suspense on Yellareddy constituency is going. There are many aspirants from Congress party while TDP is not interested in this constituency. So TJS is strongly putting pressure on Congress to leave Yellareddy for them i.e, Rachana Reddy.

If she is confirmed, Rachana would get the support of the three parties and things would turn difficult for the sitting MLA Yenugu Ravinder Reddy.

If the Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have their say in Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi might contest the next Lok Sabha elections from south as well, apart from his constituencies in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.

According to party sources, former Union minister and Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattatreya is understood to have proposed to BJP national president Amit Shah that the party would reap rich benefits, if Modi contests from South, particularly from Telangana.

He is learnt to have offered to sacrifice his Secunderabad seat, if Modi agrees to contest from South.
Dattatreya reportedly put forth the proposal before Shah during his recent meeting in Telangana.Apparently, the Telangana BJP leaders are of the view that if the party has to pick up in the south, it has to have a strong face here and there was no better person than Modi who is very popular in South.Secunderabad has been the bastion of the BJP for quite some time because of the presence of north Indians in big numbers, who are great fans of Modi.

So, it would be a cakewalk for him to win the seat as well as help the BJP win a considerable number of assembly segments under Secunderabad parliamentary constituency.In the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014, Modi contested from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh where he established the party well. He can use a similar strategy in the South.It is not exactly known what is in the minds of the BJP national leadership, but fielding Modi from South is not a bad idea. Let us watch out for more developments on this front.

Erstwhile glamorous heroine and star campaigner for the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee Vijayashanti has declared that she is not going to contest the ensuing assembly elections in the state.Vijayashanti told media on Monday that she would not seek the party ticket to contest the assembly elections, but would campaign for the party extensively all over the state.

She, however, did not disclose whether she would be contesting the Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in April 2019.Vijayashanti was the only MP from Telangana Rashtra Samithi, apart from party president K Chandrasekhar Rao, in the Lok Sabha between 2009 and 2014, which passed the historic bill for the formation of Telangana state.

She represented Medak parliamentary constituency, but was denied the ticket in 2014. She was expelled from the TRS just before the elections and she was forced to join the Congress party.The actress-turned-politician said she was still not aware as to why she was expelled from the TRS.“May be, KCR thought I would come in the way of the political growth of his son K T Rama Rao and daughter K Kavitha,” she said.

Vijayashanti expressed surprise over the attack by KCR and his family members on Congress former president Sonia Gandhi.“The entire family prostrated before Sonia soon after the formation of Telangana. But he went back on the promise to merge his party with the Congress. Now, he says he had forced Sonia to succumb to his pressures to g