Defectors put Cong’s Oppn status at stake

Hyderabad: With eight Congress MLAs announcing that they are quitting the party and joining the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the Congress is in imminent danger of losing its status as the main Opposition party in the Telangana Legislative Assembly.

Kollapur, MLA B. Harshvardhan Reddy met TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao on Wednesday and expressed his desire to join the ruling party, becoming the eighth Congress MLA to do so.

So far, Congress MLAs Athram Sakku, R. Kantha Rao, Banoth Hari Priya, Chirumurthy Lingaiah, K. Upender Reddy, Vanama Venkateswara Rao and Sabitha Indra Reddy have announced they are quitting the Congress and joining the TRS.

Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy accorded Opposition status to the Congress in the current House during the first session of the Assembly as the party had more than one-tenth of MLAs in the House.

Now, with the decision of eight MLAs to quit the party, the strength of the Congress in the House is just 11, and as such it could be deprived of the Opposition status.

The Congress has already lost its Opposition status in the Telangana Legislative Council with the defections of MLAs to TRS soon after the election results were declared.

Mr Harshvardhan Reddy released a press statement after meeting Mr Rama Rao today, announcing his intention of quitting the Congress and joining the TRS.

The reason he gave was that the TRS government has taken up various programmes to develop the backward district of Mahabubnagar and he has been inspired by the welfare and development activities initiated by Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao.

He said that when he met Mr Rama Rao, the latter had responded positively with regard to issues of Kollapur constituency and had assured him there would be development of the segment.

He said he would quit the Congress and seek a fresh mandate by contesting on the TRS ticket if required.