It will be an opposition-less upper house in Telangana at least for now, as the K Chandrashekhar Rao led Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Asaduddin Owaisi’s Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) bagged all the five MLC seats. The elections were held on Tuesday where 22 MLAs belonging to the Congress, TDP and BJP MLAs abstained from voting.

The winners were Mohd Mahmood Ali, Seri Subhash Reddy, Satyavathi Rathod and Yegge Mallesham (all from TRS) and Mirza Riyaz ul Hasan Effendi of MIM. The five MLCs were elected under MLAs’ quota.

The Congress, which has 19 MLAs in the assembly, fielded PCC treasurer Guduru Narayana Reddy. It had hoped he would be elected with the support of two TDP legislators. Reddy required votes of 21 MLAs for a straight win.

But over the last week, four Congress MLAs -- Rega Kantha Rao from Pinapaka, Atram Sakku from Asifabad, Haripriya Naik from Yellandu and Chirumarthi Lingaiah from Nakrekal, besides TDP MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah from Sattupalli, announced their support to the TRS, which fielded the fifth candidate on behalf of the MIM despite lacking adequate numbers.

Realising that it does not have enough strength to win the seat, the Congress on Monday announced that it was boycotting the MLC elections to protest poaching of its MLAs by the TRS leadership. Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka issued a whip to all the party MLAs asking them not to take part in voting in the MLC elections.

Similarly, Telangana TDP president L Ramana also issued a whip to its two legislators – Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and Mecha Nageshwar Rao – to stay away from polling. Lone BJP member T Raja Singh also decided to abstain from voting, as he opposed the TRS fielding the MIM candidate for the fifth seat.

Following the issuance of whips, four Congress MLAs and one TDP MLA who shifted their loyalties were also forced to abstain from voting as they feared they would be liable for disqualification from their assembly membership if they voted for the TRS in violation of the whip.

As a result, only 98 MLAs, including nominated Anglo-Indian MLA Elvis Stevenson, took part in the voting for the MLC elections. The TRS followed the second-preferential voting method to make up for the lack of adequate number of MLAs for the contestants and ensured that all the five MLCs were elected without any hassle.

Meanwhile, another Congress MLA and former home minister P Sabita Indra Reddy, who met TRS working president KT Rama Rao on Sunday and decided to join the TRS along with her son Karthik Reddy, deferred her plans after getting a call from the Congress leadership.

“I have been asked to come to Delhi on Wednesday to meet party president Rahul Gandhi. I will take a decision after discussing with my followers,” Sabita said.

First Published: Mar 12, 2019 19:56 IST