Actor-Turned-Politician Vijayashanthi Returns To BJP, Quits Congress

The news comes after, the BJP in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Elections (GHMC), stood second, with 48 seats in the 150-member civic council.

Image: G Kishan Reddy/ Twitter

Actor-turned-politician Vijayashanti on Monday joined the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), a party she had chosen in the late 90s to start her political career before joining other outfits, and asserted that only the saffron party can fulfill the aspirations of the people of Telangana. The news comes after, the BJP in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Elections (GHMC), stood second, with 48 seats in the 150-member civic council. Vijayashanti, who also acted in a few Hindi movies, before joining the saffron party met Home Minister Amit in the presence of its general secretary Arun Singh, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, and Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar at the party headquarters. The old former member of parliament, after leaving the BJP, went to Congress and K Chandrasekhar Rao led Telugu Rashtra Samithi (TRS). Vijayshanti who was associated with the movement for Telangana's statehood said that the ruling TRS had failed to fulfill the people's dreams for the new state and alleged that there was rampant corruption in the government headed by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. The 54-year old, was a big star in south Indian cinema when she started her political career with the BJP in 1997. She quit the party to join the TRS during its fight for a separate Telangana. She was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009. The Telugu movie star joined the Congress in 2014, just before Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated and Telangana was born. Vijayashanti is the second high-profile Congress leader to join the BJP after Khushbu Sundar from Tamil Nadu. She quit the Congress after Hyderabad local poll results on Friday. The steady decline in the fortunes of the Congress has also helped the party emerge as the main challenger to the TRS.