Hyderabad:Â Congress leader and former minister Aruna Kumari Galla and her industrialist son Galla Jayadev Saturday joined Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
Aruna Kumari along with her supporters formally joined TDP in the presence of party chief and former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu at the party office here.
The minister for mines in Kiran Kumar Reddy’s cabinet, she said she was hurt by the manner in which the Congress divided Andhra Pradesh and hence decided to quit the party and join the TDP.
Jayadev, vice chairman and managing director of Amara Raja Batteries Ltd, said he believed only Chandrababu Naidu can develop Seemandhra (residuary Andhra Pradesh).
The Galla family hails from Chittoor, the native district of Naidu in Rayalaseema region.
Aruna Kumari was elected to the Andhra Pradesh assembly from Chandragiri three times and served as a minister under different chief ministers since 2004.
Jayadev, who worked as political manager to his mother, is reportedly keen to contest from Guntur constituency in coastal Andhra.
He was an aspirant for Congress ticket to contest assembly by-election from Tirupati in 2012 but the leadership refused to field him.
Aruna Kumari is the third minister of Kiran Reddy’s cabinet to join the TDP after the bill for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh was passed in parliament last month. Earlier, T. G. Venkatesh and G. Srinivasa Rao quit Congress to join TDP.