Roja issue with congress...

Hyderabad, Sept 11 :

Tollywood heroine and former Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader, Ms K Roja, on Friday saw some conspiracy from certain quarters to prevent her from joining the Congress.
Upset over  the recent outbursts of some woman Congress leaders, a visibly pained  Ms Roja told a group of media persons here on Friday that she would strive hard to effectively implement the ideals of the late Rajasekhara Reddy, who was solely responsible for the State marching on the progressive path in the past five years. “I will work as a loyal soldier of the party to realize the dreams of Dr Rajasekhara Reddy,” she said.

Ms Roja, who began her political career as a TDP worker a few years ago and soon rose to hold the top post of the president of the Telugu Mahila, the woman wing of the party, walked out of the TDP to join the Congress. She even unsuccessfully contested the Assembly polls both in 2004 and in 2009. To her misfortune, a couple of days after she met Dr Rajasekhara Reddy at his camp office, Dr Reddy met a tragic end and died in a copter crash.

This has provided room for her baiters to brand her that she would bring ill omen to any party that she steps in. Ironically, a few days before the former chief minister and TDP president, Mr N Chandrababu Naidu, had survived the landmine blast at Alipiri, the foot hills of the world famous temple town of Tirumala, Ms Roja met him and expressed her desire to take a plunge into politics.

These two issues have certainly come in handy for Ms Roja’s adversaries both in the TDP, the party that groomed her as a leader, and in the Congress, on which she is now pinning her hopes to rise. (Ms Roja is yet to take the Congress membership and is still to be admitted into the party formally). 

Before her formal entry to the party, the president of the state unit of the Mahila Congress and MLC, Ms Ganga Bhavani, made a scathing attack on Ms Roja and strongly felt that her admission into the Congress would only spell doom to the party as it is not auguring well for the organization.

Not shaken at these outbursts, Ms Roja said that she would continue in the Congress even swimming against the tides. “I will not be cowed down by such empty threats. But I see some hidden hand behind all these threats, some Congress leaders are making adverse remarks against me,” she observed. 

The former TDP woman leader dismissed the arguments that Dr Rajasekhara Reddy had died in the copter crash just because she met him a couple of days before. “This reflects the ignorance of the leaders who had made such remarks. I need not take them into consideration,” she said.

She said that Dr Reddy had invited her into the Congress with great respect and she would live upto the expectations of the late leader. “Though Dr Reddy is physically not with us, I will not, at any cost, go back to the TDP for selfish goals,” she stated. Ms Roja even made it clear that she would not expect any posts either in the party or in the Government. “My present priority is to work as a loyal soldier of the Congress to build the organization and for the overall development of the party,” she added.