Hyderabad, March 11 Telangana Legislative Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar on Wednesday dismissed petitions seeking the disqualification of two BRS MLAs for allegedly switching to the ruling Congress, bringing to an end the issue involving a total of 10 legislators from the opposition party.
The Speaker dismissed the pleas against Danam Nagender and Kadiam Srihari. The opposition BRS and BJP criticized the Speaker's decision, pointing out that Nagender had even contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket.
Prasad Kumar told
BRS MLAs had filed petitions against Nagender, Srihari and eight other MLAs, alleging that they had defected to the Congress after winning the election as the opposition party's nominees in 2023.
Along with BRS MLAs, BJP MLA A Maheshwar Reddy also filed a petition seeking Nagender's disqualification.
The Speaker had earlier dismissed the disqualification petitions submitted against eight BRS MLAs.
With the pleas against Nagender (MLA from Khairatabad) and Srihari (MLA from Station Ghanpur) also being thrown out, the issue of disqualification petitions presented before the Speaker against 10 BRS MLAs came to a close.
Responding, BRS Working President K T Rama Rao said giving a clean chit to the two MLAs is an "assault" on democracy.
"The Speaker's decision which encourages defections is a dark day in the history of democracy," he said in a post on X.
Pointing out that Nagender had contested as a Congress candidate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he said giving a clean chit to such a person is an insult to people's verdict.
Describing the Speaker's decision as an absolute mockery of the Constitution in Congress-ruled Telangana, state BJP president N Ramchander Rao said the ruling is a striking example of the kind of "respect for the Constitution" that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi often claims to champion.
Recalling that Nagender contested Lok Sabha election on behalf of Congress, the BJP leader said "Congress has insulted, made a mockery of Babasaheb Ambedkar ji's Constitution."
Nagender, however, told reporters that it was his fundamental right as a citizen to contest the Lok Sabha election.
Claiming that he did not give up membership of BRS, he said he did not take the membership of Congress either.
"Our (he and other nine BRS MLAs) functioning was not against the BRS in the assembly," he said.
Srihari said, in his view, the disqualification petitions filed against the MLAs was illegal.
Why the disqualification petitions were filed by BRS MLAs and not by the party, he asked.
Recalling that BRS had admitted MLAs from other parties when it was in power, Srihari said he is ready to quit if BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao apologizes to people for having inducted legislators from other parties.