D Srinivas submits petition for MLCs’ disqualification

Hyderabad: Leader of the Opposition in Telangana Legislative Council and former Pradesh Congress Committee president D. Srinivas on Saturday submitted a petition seeking disqualification of five Congress MLCs, who defected to the TRS recently.

Mr Srinivas met Telangana Legislature secretary Raja Sadaaram and submitted a petition under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution seeking disqualification of the membership of five Congress MLCs for defection. He has stated that the action of five MLCs — K.R. Amos, R. Bhupal Reddy, R. Jagadeswara Reddy, Bhanu Prasad and B. Rajalingam — who got elected from the Congress and joined the TRS, without resigning from the party and posts, tantamount to defection under the definition of 2(1)(A) of the Anti-Defection Law. They should have given up their membership voluntarily.

Mr Srinivas submitted evidence like newspaper clippings and the statements issued by the five MLCs along with the CDs of the function organised in Telangana Bhavan where they were all admitted into the TRS by Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

He said if they don’t get justice, he is prepared to challenge the issue in a court of law and see to that the five MLCs lose their membership for defecting. “They have no business to shift loyalties to another party after having been elected from one party,” Mr Srinivas said.

However, the petition seeking disqualification is to be decided by Chairman in-charge of the Legislative Council Neti Vidyasagar.