Hyderabad, March 11 – Telangana Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar on Wednesday dismissed the petitions seeking the disqualification of two BRS MLAs who were alleged to have switched allegiance to the Congress in 2024.
Delivering the orders on the petitions filed against Kadiyam Srihari and Danam Nagender, he stated that the petitioners had failed to provide any evidence that the two MLAs had defected to the Congress party.
The Speaker had earlier completed the hearing on the petitions filed by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA Kaushik Reddy and BJP MLA Maheshwar Reddy seeking the disqualification of Nagender, as well as the petition filed by BRS MLA K. P. Vivekanand seeking the disqualification of Srihari.
While giving a clean chit to Nagender and Srihari, both former ministers, the Speaker ruled that they are technically still with the BRS.
With this, the Speaker has dismissed petitions seeking the disqualification of all 10 BRS MLAs who had switched allegiance to the Congress in 2024, a few months after the Congress came to power in the state.
In December 2025, he dismissed petitions seeking the disqualification of five MLAs – Tellam Venkat Rao, Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy, T. Prakash Goud, Gudem Mahipal Reddy, and Arekapudi Gandhi.
He also dismissed the petitions seeking the disqualification of Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and Kale Yadaiah on January 15.
On February 4, the Speaker dismissed the petition seeking the disqualification of BRS MLA Sanjay Kumar.
In all these cases, the Speaker ruled that the petitioners had failed to provide any evidence that the MLAs had defected to the Congress, effectively ruling out the applicability of the Anti-Defection Act.
While the BRS had complained that the 10 MLAs had openly joined the Congress and even sat in the Treasury Benches in the Assembly, the MLAs denied that they had joined the ruling party.
They contended that they had only met Chief Minister Revanth Reddy to seek funds for the development of their constituencies.
The Speaker’s ruling on the petitions seeking the disqualification of two BRS MLAs came a day before the hearing in the Supreme Court.
On February 6, the Supreme Court gave the Speaker a final opportunity to decide on the remaining disqualification petitions against BRS MLAs.
A Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and A.G. Masih directed the Speaker to "positively" decide on the pending petitions within three weeks.
The Apex Court was hearing contempt petitions arising out of non-compliance with its order of July 31, 2025, which had granted three months to the Speaker to decide the disqualification pleas against 10 BRS MLAs who were alleged to have crossed over to the Congress.