The ongoing meltdown within the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) descended into open bickering on Twitter on Sunday. Two party leaders - Kesineni Srinivas and Buddha Venkanna - exchanged barbs and dragged party chief Chandrababu Naidu into their feud.
Srinivas is one of the TDP's two MPs in the Lok Sabha and Venkanna is an Andhra Pradesh MLC, and the two have had a long-running feud. Venkanna is considered to be a close aide to Naidu.
On Sunday, Srinivas tweeted at Naidu, seemingly asking him to restrain Venkanna, and referring to him in a derogatory manner. "Chandra Babu Garu if you don't want people like me in the party you can let me know I will resign as Member of Parliament and also to the Party membership. If you want people like me to continue please control your pet dog," he said in his tweet.
Venkanna hit back, tweeting, "Everyone in the country knows who is the thief who has looted former Lok Sabha speaker, the late GMC Balayogi's assets. Also, everyone knows how your travel company ran number of buses on one registration number with fake permits."
In search of the final word, Srinivas tweeted, "You cannot get four votes but you have four posts. You can speak four words properly, cannot write four lines properly..and you are tweeting...our misfortune."
Venkanna struck back, with, "You indulge in illegal activities and what all I am mentioning is truth. In 1997 haven't you cheated finance companies to the tune of crores of rupees. Now how dare you say I cannot tweet."
The spat between Srinivas and Venkanna comes amid speculation that the Lok Sabha MP is preparing to defect to the BJP. Srinivas has repeatedly denied this so far. But his direct calling out of Naidu suggests that The TDP could be faced with yet another defection. The already embattled Chandrababu Naidu is yet to intervene in this Twitter battle.
The TDP has been swirling in one crisis after the next after its rout in the elections to both the Lok Sabha and the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. The party has suffered from a string of defections, with leader after leader quitting the party to join either the ruling YSRCP or the BJP. Four of the TDP's six MPs in the Rajya Sabha have split off to join the BJP.
