Congress pins hopes on Supreme Court to undo defections

Hyderabad: The Telangana Congress Legislature Party (CLP) has intensified efforts to make an effective representation in the Supreme Court against legislators who defected to the TRS. The Supreme Court will hear the case on October 19.

CLP leader K. Jana Reddy, Leader of Oppo-sition in Council Moha-mmed Ali Shabbir and senior leaders met Congress MP and former Solicitor General Vivek Tankha, who is arguing the case.

“We are confident of getting a favourable judgement against the legislators who defected to the ruling party in violation of the law. Chief Minister K. Cha-ndrasekhar Rao engineered 47 defections in 28 months and Speaker S. Madhusudan Chary supported his action by remaining silent on disqualification petitions submitted by Opposition parties,” Mr Shabbir Ali said.

He added, “We will tell the Supreme Court that the Speaker has erred in merging 12 TD MLAs with the TRS and will question his inaction against other defectors.”

He hoped the apex court would take serious note of defection of 25 MLAs, 18 MLCs and 4 MPs. Those who defected to the TRS include 12 legislators from the TD, seven from the Congress, three from the YSRC, two from the BSP and and one from the CPI.

“We were told by legal experts that there was no provision in the law that permits merger of legislature parties as they are part of main political party. Therefore, the Speaker has no right to merge the two Legislature Parties,” he said.

Mr Shabbir Ali said the power to merge political parties was vested with the Election Commission.  “By defecting to other parties, the legislators or parliamentarians cannot seek their party’s merger,” he said.

The Supreme Court had served notice to the Speaker seeking reply on a petition filed against defectors.