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Hyderabad: The statements of Munugode Congress MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy against his own party have once again put his party’s leadership in a tight spot.

In a video published by Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s (BRS) unofficial social media handle ‘Telugu Scribe’ on Saturday, July 18, Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy said that those who came from other parties to the Congress were being given more importance, while the organic Congress workers were being insulted.

He said that such leaders may stay in the Congress when its in power presently, but would shift their loyalties in no time.

“Those Congress workers who worked for ten years are being insulted and sidelined, while the newly joined workers from other parties are being given more importance. There is no guarantee for such workers that they will stay in the Congress in the future,” he cautioned.

Raj Gopal Reddy was also one such ‘original’ Congress leader who had shifted his loyalties from the grand-old-party to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after resigning his Munugode MLA’s post in what he claimed, was his protest against the then Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government’s neglect of his assembly constituency.

The Munugode by-electionin 2022 had gone in the history as one of the costliest by-elections in the history of Telangana, and also as a classic case of how a ruling party could use its mammoth police force to crush the opposition. Every BRS MLA from the state was made in-charge of a gram panchayat in the Munugode constituency, by stationing them in those villages, along with a platoon of BRS workers and people’s representatives, not to mention the police personnel.

The BRS had a situational arrangement, that was perceived to be an alliance with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in that by-election, which had disrupted the vote-share in some major pockets between the BJP and BRS in the periphery of Hyderabad. The result was that K Prabhakar Reddy, who was largely an unknown face, had won against the so-called giant Raj Gopal Reddy.

The BRS’ candidate had won the by-election with a margin of 10,309 votes against Raj Gopal Reddy of the then BJP.

He then rejoined Congress and contested from the very Munugode assembly constituency when the then BRS government was facing a strong anti-incumbency. This time around, he won against the very person who had defeated him in the by-election; by a margin of 40,590 votes in the 2023 assembly elections.

The latest announcement by Raj Gopal Reddy before the media that anybody could switch parties at any time; also applies to him, as he has been one of them.