Anti Defection Act: 23 is a jinxed figure for Telugu Desam

Hyderabad: The Telugu Desam won 23 seats in the Assembly elections, and three seats in the Lok Sabha elections.

The figures are significant because in the 2014 assembly elections, the Telugu Desam won 102 seats out of 175 and the YSR Congress won 66 seats. After coming to power, the TD encouraged defections from YSR Congress MLAs. Some 23 YSR Congress MLAs defected to the TD and some of them were made ministers.

The YSR Congress complained to the Assembly speaker and asked for the defectors to be disqualified under the Anti Defection Act. The interesting fact is that in this assembly election, the TD won only 23 seats, which is the exact number of MLAs admitted into the party from the YSRC.

Regarding Lok Sabha elections in 2014 the TD won 15 seats and the YSR Congress won eight seats in AP. After the elections three YSRC MPs, S.P.Y. Reddy, Butta Renuka and Kotthapally Geetha, defected to the TD.

In the current Lok Sabha elections, the TD won three seats which is the exact number of MPs who defected to the party.

In Telangana State, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi too encouraged defections after it came to power. It admitted TD, Congress and YSR Congress MLAs and MPs. While the TD leadership has been critical of this action of the TRS, in Andhra Pradesh it did the same thing.