Telangana: Chaos at CLP meeting

Hyderabad: Chaos, confusion and commotion was the order of the day when Congress MLAs met at the CLP office on Thursday to discuss the defection of party MLAs to the TRS.

At one point of time, the leaders, including Leaders of the Opposition in the Assembly and the Legislative Council, K. Jana Reddy and Mohd. Ali Shabbir respectively, took objection to the remarks of TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy.

Earlier, in response to the demand to convene the CLP meeting and invite all party legislators, MPs V. Hanumantha Rao and Gutta Sukhender Reddy conveyed to Mr Jana Reddy their inability to attend since they were pre-occupied with the Parliament session.

Then Mr Jana Reddy and Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy decided to conduct the meeting with only MLAs.

A communiqué was sent to all MPs, MLCs and MLAs giving the date and time of the meeting. Seeing the communiqué, MLC Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy reached the CLP office and entered Mr Jana Reddy’s chambers where the meeting was scheduled. Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy told him the meeting was confined to MLAs and MLCs were not among the invitees.

Mr Sudhakar Reddy showed the message he had received and said that such errors were not in the interest of the party when it was facing a crisis-like situation and coordination was the need of the hour.

Later, Mr Jana Reddy expressed regrets at the communication gap. In the meeting, he said he was very upset to see reports that he too was planning to join the TRS and said that the PCC chief should have condemned.

He asked the PCC chief to enquire and find out which particular office bearer was sending such messages take action. Mr Shabbir Ali took objection to Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy remarks on him not being invited.

The meeting decided to knock the doors of  the Supreme Court against the MLAs joining the TRS without resigning from the membership of the House. It also decided all that MLAs should contribute one month’s salary to the party’s Palair candidate Sucharitha Reddy.