HYDERABAD: An unusual bonhomie was witnessed between Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka in the Assembly on Monday. This happened during the short discussion on ‘Central Electricity Bill — Ramifications’ which caught not just members of the ruling TRS but also Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy off-guard.
Participating in the debate, Bhatti criticised the BJP-led government at the Centre for imposing power reforms on States, cutting loans of the Telangana state government loans for not opposing power reforms, statements made by Union ministers and BJP leaders on installing “double engine governments” in all states. He also expressed his party’s support to the TRS government's opposition to the Centre on these issues.
Bhatti was highly critical of the BJP, thus even though his speech went on for more than half-an-hour, neither the Speaker nor the Treasury benches interrupted him. Bhatti spoke till he finished on his own, as opposed to before when the Speaker would constantly ask him to wrap up while emphasising on the time limit. On his part, the CM mentioned Bhatti seven times in his one-and-a-half-hour response to the debate, complimenting the Congress leader on his remarks.
While the discussion was focused on power reforms, Bhatti brought up other issues, including urging the CM to end the current VRAs strike by providing them with a pay scale, passing a resolution requesting that the new Delhi Parliament building be named after Dr B.R. Ambedkar, passing another resolution in the House opposing the Centre’s power reforms despite the fact that the House already approved a similar resolution in September 2021, and holding the winter session of the Assembly for 15 to 20 days since the ongoing two-day session was not at all sufficient to discuss several issues concerning people.
When Bhatti spoke about issues other than power reforms, the Speaker and TRS MLAs and ministers were seen interjecting, but it was the CM who intervened to save Bhatti. The Speaker and TRS MLAs were signalled by the CM and minister of legislative affairs V. Prashanth Reddy to allow him to speak.
The CM agreed with all of Bhatti’s points while pledging to pass the two resolutions that the Congress leader had requested on Tuesday. The CM also pledged to end the VRA strike and organise a 20–25 day winter session to consider all matters affecting the people. The relations between CM and Bhatti turned sore after Bhatti was stripped off Leader of Opposition (LoP) status soon after Assembly polls in 2019 after 12 out of 18 Congress MLAs joined the TRS.
Later, Bhatti's seat as LoP in the House was allotted to AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi, although AIMIM was not given 'principal opposition
status'. However, the relations between CM and Bhatti started improving when the Dalit Bandhu scheme was introduced in 2021. The CM invited Bhatti last year to Pragathi Bhavan to obtain his opinions on formulating guidelines for the successful implementation of Dalit Bandhu. This was for the first time that a Congress MLA stepped into Pragathi Bhavan so far.
Later, the CM selected Bhatti's constituency Madhira as a pilot project for implementing Dalit Bandhu. The latest incidents in the House on Tuesday once again led to speculations that Bhatti was inching closer to TRS.
