Etala preparing ground for new party
Etala may hold public meeting, announce party, quit as MLA
Ousted minister Etala Rajendar and his future course of action continue to be the topic of hot discussion across the state. The talk revolves around whether his expulsion from the Cabinet was a good move, whether he will quit the Legislative Assembly, if and by when he is likely to float a political party and whether he will join a national party.
However, impression is gaining ground since the time he changed his Twitter account banner picture and the developments in Huzurabad, that Rajendar is poised to
launch a political party.
In the new photo, he is in a green kanduva, with Telangana Talli and statues of martyrs on one side while photos of Jyothirao Phule, Dr B.R. Ambedkar and Prof. A. Jayashankar on the other along with an
image of Telangana state and a clenched fist symbolizing the statehood movement set against the blue, green and yellow background.
The photograph indicates that Rajendar is keen on having Backward
Class (BC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Tribes (ST) in his party. Rajendar emerged as a strong BC leader with a considerable hold over BCs, SCs, STs, employee and caste-based unions and students.
On several occasions, he has maintained that he never craved for any post or position and at the same time gave indications that he would not tolerate anyone hurting his self-respect, a slogan on which he is, ostensibly, preparing ground for his new party. He is likely to announce it at a massive public meeting in the near future. Towards this, and to garner political support, he has met some key leaders of BJP and Congress and disgruntled leaders from the TRS. It is also learnt that Rajendar is likely to resign as MLA during the public meeting. As people are bearing the brunt of a deadly Covid-19 second wave, he has decided to wait till the situation returns to normalcy.
Sensing this, TRS boss K. Chandrashekar Rao initially handed over the responsibility of taking care of the party cadre of Huzurabad constituency to BC welfare minister Gangula Kamalakar. However, when Rajendar attacked Kamalakar, the CM brought trouble-shooter T. Harish Rao into Huzurabad politics.