Hyderabad: Popular Telugu actress and former Congress MLA Jayasudha Kapoor joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday.
Telangana BJP President G Kishan Reddy and BJP general secretary and state in-charge Tarun Chugh inducted her into the party fold at an event held at BJP office in Delhi.
Jayasudha joined BJP a few days after Kishan Reddy met her and formally invited her.
“We have to serve this country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Today when we go out of India, people talk about India. What we are today is because of PM Modi,” Jayasudha said.
There had been speculations for the last one year that she is planning to join BJP.
BJP MLA and former minister Eatala Rajender had also met Jayasudha and invited her to join the party. She was reported to have laid certain preconditions before the BJP and conveyed to the party leadership that she will join the party if those preconditions are met.
BJP has reportedly assured to give her the party ticket in Assembly elections due to be held later this year. She is likely to be fielded from Secunderabad Assembly constituency, which she once represented.
The invitation to Jayasudha is part of BJP's efforts to woo leaders from various parties and well-known personalities to its fold to bolster its prospects for the 2023 Assembly elections.
The actress, who played leading roles in many films in the 1970s and 1980s, had joined politics at the invitation of Congress leader and then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy in 2009.
She was elected to Andhra Pradesh Assembly from Secunderabad constituency in 2009. She, however, could not retain the seat in the 2014 elections.
She quit the Congress to join the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 2016 but remained largely inactive in it.
In 2019, she along with her son Nihar Kapoor joined the YSR Congress Party headed by Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, who became Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh the same year.
Jayasudha had stressed her close relationship with Andhra Pradesh but had made it clear that she had no plans to contest in the elections.
With inputs from agencies