Palakurthy MLA Errabelli Dayakar Rao, who had defected from Telugu Desam Party to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, has shot back at his critics about his letter to the Speaker seeking merger of majority of the TDP MLAs with the TRS.

Dayakar told media that what the 12 TDP MLAs had done was no different from what TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu had done in August 1995 when he dethroned then Chief Minister N T Rama Rao.

“What we did was not worse than what Naidu had done in 1995. Those days, Naidu had given a similar letter to then Speaker Yanamala Ramakrishnudu stating that majority of the MLAs were with him and hence, his group should be treated as real Telugu Desam Legislature Party.

We have also done the same. Since 12 out of the 15 MLAs have supported the TRS, we gave a letter to the Speaker seeking to consider as real TDLP which has merged with the TRS. The Speaker accepted our request and declared as associated members of the TRS,” Errabelli said.

The defected MLA said he had joined the TRS without any preconditions.

“If Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao takes me into the Cabinet, I will welcome it. In fact, I have the highest popularity in Telangana, next to KCR,” he claimed.

If the talk going on in the ruling Telugu Desam Party is true, the latest Andhra Pradesh budget introduced by Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu has come a big attraction for a batch of leaders from the YSR Congress party headed by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.

According to the TDP sources, in the latest budget, the Naidu government announced setting up of a major industrial park at a cost of Rs 23,000 crore, besides a green-field airport at Donakonda in Prakasam district.

It was here that a number of YSR Congress leaders had invested huge amounts in purchase of lands, expecting that the new capital city of Andhra Pradesh would come up at Donakonda, as recommended by Sivaramakrishnan Committee.

However, with Chandrababu Naidu zeroing in on Amarvati region between Vijayawada and Guntur as the capital, all their hopes were shattered and the values of the lands purchased by them had dropped substantially.

Now, with the latest announcement of developmental projects at Donakonda, the YSR Congress batch is said to be too happy, as it would give a lot of scope for them to get back their investments.

Apparently, Naidu had used this masterstroke to woo the Jagan batch and divert their attention from the benami land scam that has surfaced in Amaravati in the recent past!