Raja Singh wants to contest from Kishan Reddy’s LS seat

Sources in the party say Raja Singh made the comment deliberately as Kishan Reddy was reportedly exerting pressure on him to contest the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, represented by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

Hyderabad: A cold war between BJP State unit president G Kishan Reddy and Goshamahal MLA T Raja Singh is slowly spilling out in to the open. On Monday, Raja Singh announced that he was ready to contest from the Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency, currently represented by Kishan Reddy, in the forthcoming Parliamentary elections if the party leadership permits him. The statement has created ripples in party circles.

Sources in the party say Raja Singh made the comment deliberately as Kishan Reddy was reportedly exerting pressure on him to contest the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, represented by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. In fact he threw the ball into Kishan Reddy’s court, by saying that he would be a better candidate to take on Owaisi and that the party should consider him for the Secunderabad Parliament seat instead.

---

Raja Singh’s remarks have created tension in the party circle and many senior leaders advised him not to make such statements publicly. However, the incident has once again brought to the fore the ongoing differences among senior leaders of the party in the State.

A cold war has been going on between the two ever since Raja Singh, without consulting Kishan Reddy, had announced that BJP MLAs would not take oath from pro-tem speaker Akbaruddin Owaisi. Kishan Reddy reportedly pulled up Singh and asked him not to make any kind of announcement without consulting the party. Annoyed by the reprimand, Raja Singh did not attend the pooja organised for the newly elected MLAs at Bhagyalakshmi Temple. He even stayed away from the protest organised against the appointment of Akbaruddin as pro-tem speaker at the Telangana Martyrs Memorial opposite Assembly.

The underlying issues worsened after Singh was denied the post of BJP Legislative Party leader and was not even considered for any post in the legislature. The latest remarks of Singh is being seen as an effort to resist the efforts of Kishan Reddy to force him to contest the Hyderabad seat.
However, many senior leaders feel that the remarks of Singh may send the wrong signal to party functionaries and people that the party lacks unity and that the infighting in BJP would prove beneficial for Congress in the Lok Sabha polls