The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and member of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council, Somu Veerraju, was on Monday appointed as the president of the party’s Andhra Pradesh unit. Linked with the RSS, Veerraju has been in the BJP for four decades and now has assumed this new responsibility.
The appointment will be implemented with immediate effect. He was the front runner for the post two years ago, but it was given to Kanna Lakshminarayana since he joined BJP after leaving Congress and had experience as a minister.
There are many reasons for sidelining Kanna Lakshminarayana as under his leadership, the BJP could not win a single seat in Andhra Pradesh and the central leadership was unhappy with him. Lakshminarayana was known for his “closeness” with the TDP on most issues. He faced allegations that he had worked for N. Chandrababu Naidu indirectly after the elections.
The YSRCP parliamentary party chief Vijay Sai Reddy has also alleged that Lakshminarayana had taken money from Naidu and misused BJP funds. As per sources, without consulting the high command he wrote letters to the Governor against the decision to name Visakhapatnam as the state’s executive capital.