Telangana assembly speaker issues notices to 5 TDP defectors'

Hyderabad: Assembly Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary on Thursday issued notices to five TS TD MLAs who had declared themselves as TRS legislators, they having joined the ruling party. The notices were in response to a petition filed by TD MLA A. Revanth Reddy seeking disqualification of these five MLAs’ membership on the grounds of defection.

Earlier, TD MLAs Errabelli Dayakar Rao, T. Prakash Goud, G. Sayanna, K.P. Vivekananda Goud and S. Rajender Reddy had recently switched sides and joined the TRS in presence of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The five MLAs were asked to file their replies within one week. Mr Revanth Reddy’s petition was attached as an annexure to the notices. However the issuance of fresh notices to these five MLAs is being seen only as routine affair.

During the last 21 months, Mr Chary had earlier issued similar notices to five TD, four Congress and two YSR Congress MLAs who had joined the ruling TRS. According to sources, all the MLAs who received Mr Chary’s notices requested the Speaker to give them more time to respond. Accordingly, the Speaker granted their request.

Apart from this, there has been no progress as far as the process of conducting enquiry on the disqualification petitions or hearing the arguments of the two sides. “Since there is a separate set of petitions filed against the recent entrants into the TRS, the notices were issued as a formality,” said a source.

As reported in these columns earlier, unless the Speaker first disposes off the pending disqualification petitions relating to 10 TS TD MLAs, he cannot take a decision on the petition filed by Mr Dayakar Rao seeking merger of the TDLP into the TRS. Even when the petitioners moved the Supreme Court and High Court seeking direction on their disqualification petitions, the courts disposed off their petitions stating that unless the Speaker, who is the authority as per the 10th Schedule of Constitution that deals with disqualifications on the grounds of defection, takes a view, they will not interfere.