Hyderabad: A fresh vacancy was created in the Rajya Sabha on Friday with chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar accepting the resignation of K. Keshava Rao, who had quit as BRS MP after joining the Congress.
It will be a cakewalk for the Congress to wrest this seat from the BRS. In the 119-member Assembly, the Congress has 65 MLAs. Six MLAs from the BRS joined Congress in the past six months, increasing its tally to 71. The BRS, which won 39 seats, has been reduced to 32, after its six MLAs defected and after it lost the Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly seat to the Congress.
Telangana has seven members in Rajya Sabha. After Keshava Rao’s departure, the BRS is left with four and the Congress two.
The Congress did not have any Rajya Sabha members from Telangana since 2018. It was only after the party won the 2023 polls that it could get the numbers to elect Renuka Chowdhury and M. Anil Kumar Yadav to the Upper House.
Keshava Rao was a BRS member of the Rajya Sabha from Telangana from 2014. He was elected from the BRS for a second term in April 2020. His six-year tenure was supposed to end in April 2026. It is speculated in the Congress circles that Keshava Rao will be sent to the Rajya Sabha again.
He formally joined the Congress on Wednesday and resigned from his membership of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. On Friday, Dhankhar accepted his resignation, following which his seat in the Rajya Sabha became vacant, official sources said.
