In the backdrop of 10 Congress MLAs ‘joining the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party’, two top Congress leaders knocked the doors of Telangana High Court on Monday seeking to declare that it is the Election Commission of India that would declare merger of a legislature or political party with another party.
Telangana Congress Legislature party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy filed the writ petition stating that 10 MLAs who got elected on Congress party ticket had joined the TRS party and were working on a proposal to merge the Congress legislature party with the TRS legislature party.
Counsel for the petitioners Ravi Shankar Jandhyala made a mention about the petition before a Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Rajasheker Reddy on Monday morning. The Bench posted it for hearing on Tuesday.
Disqualification notice
The petitioners maintained that Telangana Assembly Speaker was not competent to decide upon the merger of a legislature party. They stated that the Congress party national committee had already petitioned the Assembly Speaker seeking disqualification of the 10 MLAs as they had joined the TRS party.
They requested the court to instruct the Assembly Speaker to disqualify the 10 legislators who got elected as Congress nominees but joined the TRS.
They sought to decide the matter within three months.
Prior information
The petitioners requested the court to instruct the Telangana Legislature Secretariat and Assembly Speaker to give notice to them before passing any orders on political status of the 10 legislators elected on Congress ticket.