Vivek’s rejoining in Congress causes losses to nominees of BJP

Vivek, known for inconsistency in staying with a political party, drew flak from many and was trolled on social media platforms.

Mancherial: Former Peddapalli MP Dr Vivek Venkateswamy‘s exit from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joining the Congress forced the Mancherial BJP candidate to remove Vivek’s photographs from publicity material and vehicles.

Vivek, known for inconsistency in staying with a political party, drew flak from many and was trolled on social media platforms for shifting to the Congress from where he joined the TRS (Now BRS) and then the BJP. With his latest move, he has come full circle. He is reportedly in the fray from the Chennur segment reserved for SCs.

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However, the former Parliamentarian’s decision to rejoin the Congress has caused losses to nominees of the BJP from Mancherial and Bellampalli segments. For instance, the party’s candidate V Raghunath Rao was forced to dump large quantities of pamphlets which had photographs of Vivek and redo a jeep decorated using images of the latter.

It is learnt that Raghunath Rao, who got the pamphlets printed at a huge cost, expressed displeasure as he had to discord over discarding the material and redoing his vehicle. He had already distributed about 50,000 pamphlets in rural parts. Cadres are now skeptical over the impact of the publicity material carrying photographs of Vivek.

Similarly, supporters of the BJP candidate from Bellampalli, A Sridevi tore flex posters featuring Vivek’s photograph found on the party office premises. The candidate too published pamphlets with photographs of the former Parliamentarian. Sources said that Vivek was unhappy to find photographs of BJP leader and Huzurabad MLA Etala Rajender on a vehicle meant for publicity of Raghunath’s candidature. Consequently, Rao replaced images of Rajender with those of Vivek. However, with Vivek rejoining the Congress, the vehicle now has the photograph of Rajender.

Meanwhile, Nallala Odelu, who joined the Congress expecting the ticket of Chennur Assembly constituency, was disappointed by the re-entry of Vivek. He was a strong contender for the ticket, but he was forced to sacrifice it for the sake of Vivek.