Hyderabad: The season of defection of MLAs began in Telangana with the joining of BRS Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender into the Congress recently and with it started a debate on 'karma and maths'.
A debate is on in political circles over how the Telugu Desam and the BRS paid a heavy price for engineering defections in opposition parties while they were in power in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Congress should take note of it before proceeding ahead on defections.
In the 2014 Assembly elections, the TD, which had won 102 seats in the 175-member the AP Assembly, engineered the defection of 23 YSRC MLAs. In the next elections in 2019, the TD got exactly 23 seats. Interestingly, the TD had lured three YSRC MPs, and ended up with three MPs in the 2019 polls.
After the YSRC's stupendous Assembly elections victory in 2019, its party chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy spoke about 'karma and maths', 'God's script' which became viral on social media platforms.
Jagan Mohan Reddy had said that God had punished TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu for his misdeeds and election results showed that those who resort to unethical and unjust means will definitely be punished by God.”
Jagan Mohan Reddy said, “Naidu purchased 23 MLAs of YSRCP. TD got only 23 seats and the results also came on May 23. God has written a beautiful script with 23."
The BRS took 17 MLAs from the Congress, 14 from the TD, three from the YSRC, two from BSP, two independents and one from the CPI, totalling 39, in two terms.
The magic figure to form a government in Telangana state is 60 in the 119-member House, and the BRS had secured a simple majority of 63 seats in 2014 and an absolute majority of 88 seats in 2018.
In the recent Assembly polls held in December 2023, the BRS won just 39 seats which is exactly the number of MLAs it snatched from other parties and lost power.
Against this backdrop, political circles caution Congress to proceed with caution amid reports of more number of BRS MLAs eager to join Congress in the coming days.
