The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national spokesperson Lanka Dinakar switched sides and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in New Delhi on Wednesday, June 26.
He was welcomed by the BJP working president JP Nadda, who offered him a party scarf. Dinakar was known to be highly critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was the official spokesperson of TDP.
Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Rajya Sabha member, Ram Kumar Kashyap, and former MP AP Abdullakutty also joined the BJP today.
Earlier, TDP Rajya Sabha MPs -- YS Chowdary, C M Ramesh, T G Venkatesh, all from Andhra Pradesh, and G Mohan Rao who hails from Telangana, had on Thursday claimed to have merged themselves with the BJP. They later joined the BJP in presence of its Woking President J P Nadda.
The recent development comes a month after TDP was decimated to just 23 seats in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly election while Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP got an absolute majority by winning 151 out of 175 seats. In Lok Sabha too, TDP could win only 3 seats in the recent elections.
(With agency inputs)
