Hyderabad: Eatela Rajender, the former Telangana Minister and MLA who was expelled from the state cabinet by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao over allegations of land grabbing, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in the presence of party National President JP Nadda in Delhi. The expelled leader left Hyderabad on a special flight with his followers in the wee hours.
Rajender had submitted his resignation as Huzurabad MLA to the Speaker of Telangana Assembly Pocharam Srinivas Reddy on Saturday. Having tendered his resignation, Rajender had confirmed that he will be joining the BJP on Monday. He had resigned from the primary membership of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on June 4 following differences with the party leadership.
Read: Telangana govt forms panel to probe into Etela Rajender's illegal lands deal
Rajender served as the Health Minister of Telangana State from 2019 to 2021 and the Finance Minister from 2014–2018. Once known as a close aide of Chief Minister Rao, he had been with the TRS from its inception in 2001. He was one of the founder members of the TRS and did his BSc from Osmania University in the year 1984. Rajender was born on 20 March 1964 into a Mudiraju family in Karimnagar district and is married to Jamuna. The couple has two children, a son and a daughter.
