Asserting that there were 16 mergers in the Rajya Sabha (RS), BJP State vice-president S. Vishnuvardhan Reddy demanded that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) should first answer on what grounds it admitted 23 YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) MLAs and made four of them Ministers, before calling the merger of Telugu Desam Legislature Party in the RS with that of the BJP illegal.

The YSRCP, the Congress and the CPI too have no moral right to criticise the TDP MPs, who followed the established procedures related to merger.

In a press release on Sunday, Mr. Vishnuvardhan Reddy said the TDP raised a hue and cry when the Telangana Rastra Samiti (TRS) admitted 21 TDP and Congress MLAs but it (TDP) contradicted itself when the four TDP MPs in RS merged with the BJP. The TDP leaders should have assimilated the contents of 10th Schedule of the Constitution before jumping to conclusions.

The TDP joined hands with the leaders of various parties who had criminal cases booked on them, as part of its national president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s aspiration to build a non-BJP coalition. The TDP leaders have, therefore, no right to cry hoarse about the merger.

‘No cases against Sujana, CM Ramesh’

Mr. Vishnuvardhan Reddy said Y.S. Chowdary and C.M. Ramesh neither have cases registered against them nor did they go to jail. There were only inquiries by the CBI and the I-T Department on the two MPs, whereas Congress president Rahul Gandhi was out on bail. The Congress MLAs who joined the YSRCP in 2009 were not made to resign before crossing over. Keeping this in view, the YSRCP should not make an issue out of the TDP’s merger, he added.