The PAC is vested with the responsibility of overseeing the accounts of the government, both income, expenditure and auditing the state’s finances
Hyderabad: The BRS boycotted the third consecutive meeting of the Telangana legislature’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday, protesting the continuation of former BRS MLA Arekapudi Gandhi as the committee chairman. The party also demanded to know how could former minister T. Harish Rao's application for the top PAC post go missing.
The PAC is vested with the responsibility of overseeing the accounts of the government, both income, expenditure and auditing the state’s finances.
The BRS had been opposed to Gandhi’s appointment saying that traditionally, the PAC chairman’s post is held by a member of the main Opposition party. The BRS contends that Gandhi, after he joined the Congress, cannot be heading the committee.
The BRS has its MLAs Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Gangula Kamalakar, and MLCs Satyavathi Rathod, L. Ramana as members in the committee. Speaking to reporters after boycotting the meeting, Prashant Reddy said, “The election of the PAC chairman did not follow conventions and was done unilaterally. The application of former minister Harish Rao for the post went missing. As per our party instructions, we registered our protest and left the meeting.”
He said Gandhi is one of the 10 BRS MLAs who quit the party and joined the Congress and are liable to attract provisions of the anti-defection law. "Our case seeking their disqualification is in the Supreme Court. It is definitely not the done thing to appoint a person facing a case in the Supreme Court as the PAC chairman,” Prashant Reddy explained.
