4 TDP Rajya Sabha members join BJP

New Delhi: Four of the six Telugu Desam Party members of Rajya Sabha Thursday joined the BJP and sought merger of the TDP Legislature Party with the saffron party.

Y S Chowdary, C M Ramesh, Garikapati Mohan Rao and T G Venkatesh met Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and handed him a letter of a resolution passed by the legislature party urging its merger.

BJP’s working president J P Nadda and leader of the BJP in Rajya Sabha Thawarchand Gehlot also met Naidu and submitted a proposal from BJP president Amit Shah saying the party has no objection to the merger of the TDP Legislature party with the BJP.

Three of the four MPs later met Nadda and Gehlot at the party headquarters and joined the BJP.

“I assure them that the BJP believes in politics of positivity and inclusiveness,” Nadda told a press conference in the presence of TDP MPs.

Their decision to back the BJP will give a boost to the saffron party in the upper house as the ruling National Democratic Alliance does not have a majority there yet.

The TDP, which is led by former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, also has three MPs in the Lok Sabha.

The Rajya Sabha has a strength of 245 members and the BJP is the single largest party with 71 MPs.