The Congress has charged TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao with subverting the Constitution by encouraging defections from the opposition parties.
Senior leader and Congress MP A. Revanth Reddy accused the TRS president of following his own rules and procedures, setting aside the Constitution. The Congress had therefore taken to agitational path in protest against Mr. Rao’s moves to encourage defections , he said.
Mr. Revanth Reddy was speaking at the indefinite hunger strike camp near Indira Park here of Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka against defection of twelve Congress MLAs to TRS through “unconstitutional means”. Congress activists kept visiting Mr. Bhatti Vikramarka throughout the day.
Mr. Reddy said Mr. Vikramarka was designated as the CLP leader owing to his ability to question the government for its omissions and commissions, but the TRS leadership was trying to deny the main Opposition status to the Congress.
He asserted that the merger of the CLP with the ruling party is not within the purview of the Speaker’s office as could be seen from the High Court’s judgment on the merger of TDP Telangana MLAs with the TRS in 2016. Moreover, Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, who remained silent on the petitions filed by the Congress seeking action against the defected MLAs under the provisions of the Anti-Defection law, however accepted the merger of the Congress MLAs into the ruling party.
He condemned the claims of TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao that the merger was accepted after following due procedures and advised Mr. Rama Rao to seek clarifications on the issue from the advocate general. “Issues like unemployment and construction of two bedroom houses as assured by the TRS would have been solved had Mr. Rao focussed attention on them rather than encouraging defections from other parties,” he said.
Recalling the letters addressed by the Congress MLAs to the party leadership on their resolve to leave the party, he wondered how they could hold meeting on behalf of the Congress Legislature Party after quitting the party.