Following the embarrassing defeat in the Assembly elections in Telangana in December last year, the Telangana Congress is again facing troubled waters as twelve of the party’s MLAs are set to merge with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). The 12 MLAs today met the Telangana Assembly speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy seeking a merger with the TRS.
The MLAs claiming themselves to be the representatives of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), reportedly had a meeting with the TRS working President and the son of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) at Pragati Bhavan seeking his consent for the merge. They later submitted a memorandum before the Assembly speaker seeking a merger.
The announcement was made by senior Congress leader Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy that the defecting MLAs wanted to work with the Chief Minister and that they gave a representation to the Speaker seeking a merger. “We had a special meeting of Congress Legislature Party. The 12 members supported the leadership of Chief Minister KCR and wanted to work with him. We gave a representation to the Speaker and requested him to merge us with the TRS”, GVR Reddy said.
The 12 MLAs are protected from action under the anti-defection law as they form two-thirds of the total MLAs of the Congress Legislature Party which is the required number under the law for the merger. The strength of the Telangana Congress Party was 19 until Party State unit Chief Uttam Kumar Reddy tendered his resignations after winning the Lok Sabha election his constituency Nalgonda.
As the news of the 12 MLAs meeting the Speaker came out, a protest was staged at the Assembly by Uttam Kumar Reddy along with CLP leaders Bhatti Vikramarka and Sreedhar Babu by wrapping their mouths with black ribbons. Reddy took to Twitter to term the whole episode as “shameless” and “brazen murder of democracy”.
When a writ petition was filed in the Hon’ble High Court, it ruled that there is no urgency in the matter. Yet, KCR is pressurising the Speaker to illegally & immorally merge the CLP into TRSLP. Can KCR not tolerate a Dalit as the CLP leader? (2/2)
— Uttam Kumar Reddy (@UttamTPCC) June 6, 2019
He accused Chief Minister KCR of buying the MLAs and even played the caste card.
