Vijayashanthi likely to quit BJP, to join Congress

Vijayashanthi was staying away from party activities for a few months and had skipped public meetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union Home Minister Amit Shah

Hyderabad: Totally sidelined and hurt, actor-politician and senior BJP leader Vijayashanthi has reportedly decided to quit the party and join the Congress. Sources said she was likely to join the Congress in a day or two.

The BJP leadership has been ignoring her for quite some time and had not considered her candidature for the assembly elections apart from ignoring her as a star campaigner as well.

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Vijayashanthi was staying away from party activities for a few months and had skipped public meetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union Home Minister Amit Shah. She along with former MLA Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, former MPs G Vivek Venkatswamy and Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, had reportedly formed a group and were holding meetings to pressurise the BJP leadership to assign them important posts and responsibilities.

While Rajgopal Reddy and Vivek Venkatswamy quit the party and joined Congress, Vijayashanthi is said to be preparing to join them on Sunday. It is learnt that Vishweshwar Reddy would also resign from the BJP shortly and join the Congress.

The actor had launched her political career through the BJP in 1998 and continued in the party for almost a decade. In 2009, she came out of the BJP and founded her own party “Thalli Telangana”. However, she merged the party with the BRS (then TRS) within a few months and in 2009, contested from the Medak Lok Sabha seat and won. She joined the Congress in 2014 but lost from Medak the same tear. She resigned from the Congress in 2020 and joined the BJP.