D Purandeswari at the helm of Andhra BJP, may help mould tripartite alliance against Jagan

Purandeswari is the first prominent political figure to take over as the BJP’s Andhra chief and replaces Somu Veeraju who faced complaints of not being able to take everyone along with him, especially leaders such as former state BJP chief Kanna Lakshminarayana who switched over to the TDP in February. Lakshminarayana headed the state unit from 2018 to 2020 and was a regional face like Veeraju.

With her appointment, Purandeswari becomes the most recognised national leader in the state BJP. Apart from belonging to the NTR family, she is known for doing gruelling political groundwork. The first two times she was elected MP — in 2004 and 2009 — she chose diverse and tough constituencies and battled it out with the TDP. The third time, in 2014, she contested from Rayalaseema, a region which the BJP had never entered before.

Purandeswari joined the Congress in the early 2000s. She contested and won from Bapatla in 2004 and served as Union Minister of State for the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD, which is now the Ministry of Education). Five years later, she won from the Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency and went on to become Union MoS for Commerce and Industry. In 2014, she quit the Congress in protest against the bifurcation of the state and moved to the BJP. That year, Purandeswari tried her luck in Rayalaseema by contesting from Rajampet on a BJP ticket but lost to the YSRCP’s Mithun Reddy.

She has been in charge of the BJP Mahila Morcha and has also served as the BJP general secretary in charge of Odisha. Purandeswari’s husband Daggubati Venkateswara Rao is a five-time MLA.