Defection rumours in the Congress continued even as it is starts its preparations in full gear for the MPTC and ZPTC elections.

With already 10 MLAs announcing at different times that they were leaving the party to soon join the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the party faced another scare with rumours doing rounds that three more MLAs are ready to change parties.

In the light of these developments, Congress MLAs including TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhattivikramarka, and MLAs — Podem Veeraiah, D. Sreedhar Babu, T. Jagga Reddy, Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy and P. Rohith Reddy met at Mr. Vikramarka’s house.

Sources said the MLAs denied at the meeting that they were defecting to the TRS and blamed the ruling party for spreading rumours.

In fact, Mr. Veeraiah and Mr. Venkatramana Reddy, whose names were doing rounds along with Mr. Jagga Reddy, were given responsibilities of their district to oversee MPTC and ZPTC elections, the TPCC chief confirmed.

CLP merger not legal

The meeting apparently discussed the TRS party’s plan to force the merger of CLP into TRSLP using the defected MLAs and ensuring that Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy accepts it.

“It is illegal and the High Court has already given a direction on this when the TDPLP was merged into TRSLP a few years ago,” a senior leader explained.

Bhatti meets Gandra

Meanwhile, Mr. Vikramarka along with Mr. Sreedhar Babu met Mr. Venkatramana Reddy, where Mr. Reddy denied that he was leaving the party.

Meanwhile, two Congress MLAs who have already expressed their intention to join the TRS — Chirumarti Lingaiah from Nakirekal and Banoth Haripriya from Yellandu constituency — also claimed on Sunday that some more Congress MLAs were joining the ruling party soon.

“Only three MLAs will remain in the Congress party,” Haripriya claimed while speaking to reporters at the TRSLP office where she had come to collect ‘B’ forms for ZPTC and MPTC candidates in her constituency.