The tale of political turncoats in AP

Desaraju Surya
Hyderabad: Political turncoats had a mixed luck in the Andhra Pradesh elections. While many of them lost the election, some proved successful.
Interestingly, almost all the losers were in the PRP now, having jumped over from other parties. Notable among the losers were former home minister T Devender Goud, former ministers K Kala Venkat Rao, Tammineni Seetaram, Kotagiri Vidyadhar Rao and Kottapalli Subbarayudu. All these were top-ranked leaders when they were in the Telugu Desam Party. In fact, Devender Goud was considered next only to TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu. He first quit the TDP to form his own Nava Telangana Party and subsequently merged it with the PRP. He lost both the Lok Sabha (Malkajgiri) and Assembly (Ibrahimpatnam) elections this time, his first defeat in his 25-year-old political career.
Former MP C Ramachandraiah, who too joined PRP by quitting TDP, lost the Lok Sabha election from Machilipatnam. Former Congress MLAs Vangaveeti Radhakrishnan and Buragadda Vedavyas, who joined the PRP just ahead of the elections, too failed to make it.
Former minister Mudragada Padmanabham, who switched over to the Congress from the TDP, proved unlucky as he was trounced by another political turncoat Vanga Geeta in Pithapuram. Geeta, a former member of Rajya Sabha, joined PRP from TDP and won the Assembly seat. Her colleague Bhuma Sobha Nagi Reddy emerged victorious in Allagadda Assembly constituency. A former chairperson of the State Road Transport Corporation, Sobha joined PRP from TDP along with her husband Bhuma Nagi Reddy. Nagi Reddy, however, lost the Lok Sabha election from Nandyal, a seat once represented by former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. Another former TDP MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao too emerged successful in Anakapalle in Visakhapatnam district.
Gutta Sukhender Reddy and Manda Jagannadham, who switched sides from the TDP to the Congress, emerged victorious from Nalgonda and Nagarkurnool (SC) Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. Former minister Ch Mutyam Reddy, who jumped over to the Congress from the TDP just on the eve of the elections, romped home in his native Dubbaka Assembly constituency.