india

Updated: Mar 19, 2019 18:01 IST

Industrialist-turned-politician Nama Nageshwar Rao on Tuesday resigned from Telugu Desam Party. The former MP from Telangana and TDP politburo member is one of the richest politicians in the country with declared assets worth over Rs 113 crore.

Nageshwar Rao represented Khammam parliamentary constituency between 2009 and 2014. He had been associated with the TDP for the last 15 years and served as leader of TDP parliamentary party during his stint in Lok Sabha.

The former MP, who promoted Madhucon Projects Limited, a leading infrastructure company in the country, unsuccessfully contested the recent assembly elections in Telangana from Khammam assembly constituency and lost to Puvvada Ajay Kumar of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

Since then, Rao has been keeping away from the TDP activities and skipped the party’s politburo meeting held at Amaravati on Sunday. On Monday evening, he met TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao at the latter’s farm house in Erravelli in Siddipet district.

Nageshwar Rao is expected to join the TRS soon and is likely to be fielded as party candidate for the Lok Sabha elections from Khammam, in place of sitting MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy.

Interestingly, the Congress high command has also been trying to bring Rao into the party and reserved the party ticket for Khammam for him. However, the former MP is understood to have preferred TRS to Congress.

During his stint as an MP from 2009 to 2014, Rao was one of the richest MPs in the country at the time. In 2014 general elections, he declared assets worth Rs 338 crore. In 2018 assembly elections, however, he declared assets worth Rs 113 crore.

Last week, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) authorities conducted raids on Rao’s Madhucon Projects on the charges of diversion of funds to the extent of Rs 264 crore in the construction of Ranchi-Rargoan-Jamshedpur four-lane national highway project (NH-33) worth Rs 1,151 crore.