Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, the BJP’s former president in Andhra Pradesh, leaves the party.
Hyderabad: Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, the former president of the BJP in Andhra Pradesh, resigned from the party on Thursday.
“I hereby tender my resignation to my primary membership of the Party with immediate effect due to my personal reasons and compulsions,” he wrote in a letter to the BJP National President, JP Nadda. Additionally, a copy of his resignation was sent to AP BJP chief Somu Veerraju.
The former minister and former BJP AP chief, according to reports, claimed that he felt marginalized within the party and dissatisfied with the manner in which party business was conducted in the state.
At the time of his resignation, Lakshmi Narayana was also a member of the BJP’s national executive.
Kanna Lakshminarayana, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a former minister in Andhra Pradesh, resigned from the primary membership of the party on Thursday in protest of the alleged witch hunt conducted by state BJP president Somu Veerraju.
Lakshminarayana, who is also a member of the national executive of the BJP, wrote to the BJP’s national president, J P Nadda, stating that he was leaving the party for personal reasons and compulsions.
The BJP leader told reporters at Guntur that while he admired and respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the other top BJP leaders, he was disgusted with Veerraju’s management of the Andhra BJP unit as if it were his personal fiefdom.
The 67-year-old leader, who also led the state BJP from May 2018 to August 2020 before Veerraju took over, claimed he had been completely ignored by the party and was not trusted to make decisions.
Lakshminarayana said that he would talk to his followers and make a decision about what to do next. He is expected to join the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which is led by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, according to a party leader who is aware of the development.
Lakshminarayana was a Congress MLA six times between 1991 and 2014, four times representing the assembly constituency of Pedakurapadu and one time representing the assembly constituency of Guntur (West). Following his defeat in the 2014 assembly elections, he joined the BJP.
The former president of the BJP claimed that he had never desired any positions within the party. In the past, I held a number of positions and worked with five chief ministers. I tried my hardest to lead the BJP as a cohesive unit and gain everyone’s trust after joining. However, after Veerraju assumed leadership of the state BJP, the party entered a crisis, “he stated.
Even though Lakshminarayana resigned, another senior leader and Rajya Sabha member, G V L Narasimha Rao, strongly denied the allegations made by the former BJP president. Veerraju did not immediately respond.
“Lakshminarayana was made the state BJP president and a member of the national executive committee, and he was treated with the respect he deserved within the party. A person who joined the party only in 2014 should not expect any more respect. He pressed.
Rao claimed that Lakshminarayana’s accusations against Veerraju were malicious and political in nature. He stated that only after consulting the national party leadership did the BJP chief make any decisions.