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early leaders of the movement who subsequently resigned either from the Party or from positions of responsibility in the Party. Tanguturi Prakasam, the leader of the PSP in Andhra State, defected to the Congress. PVG Raju toyed with various options in this difficult phase of his political career. As early as 1955, when he had been elected on the Praja Socialist Party (PSP) ticket to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, he presided over the Southern Regional Socialist Convention in Madras on August 27, 1955 where other PSP dissidents like Nallasivam also openly spoke against the national leadership of the PSP. PVG Raju spoke at a similar convention in Bangalore the same year in a similar vein. A little later, in April 1958, at a meeting in Bhopal, PVG Raju advocated a merger of the Praja Socialist Party with the Socialist Party. He wanted members of both parties to sit together and thrash out their differences. %u201cWe were one happy family in the past and let us resume this relationship.%u201d By this time, it was becoming clear to him that it was nigh impossible for the Socialist Bloc to come together as a single force. It had appeared that the Socialists, with concerted efforts, could pose a credible alternative to the Congress but now that seemed like a distant dream. PVG Raju was still hopeful of a positive outcome and that he could play a role in the unification process at the national level. He decided to move to Delhi by contesting in the elections for the Second Lok Sabha. Not wishing to take sides he stood as an independent candidate and was elected to Parliament in 1957. Ladli Mohan Nigam, a socialist and former Rajya Sabha member speaks of his association with PVG Raju.118