HYDERABAD: In a major blow to the grand old party, two of its Legislative Council members and two former Congress MLCs who defected to the TRS two years back on Friday requested Council Chairman K Swami Goud to merge the Congress Legislative Party with that of the TRS. The move comes a day after party leaders Akula Lalitha and T Santosh Kumar met Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
With this, the Congress has just two more leaders in the State’s Upper House, but their terms will end in March, leading to the party losing all of its dwindling presence in the House, rendering the Council oppositionless.
Within a few hours of meeting rebel Congress MLCs Lalitha and Santhosh along with K Damodhar Reddy and MS Prabhakar — who defected to the pink party two years back and now serve as TRS associate members, Chairman Goud recognised their merger with the ruling party and by evening, Legislature secretary V Narasimha Charyulu issued a bulletin stating that Lalitha and Santhosh were henceforth members of the TRS and would be allotted seats accordingly.
The total strength of the Council is 40. Of the seven Congress MLCs in the Council in 2016, four have defected to the TRS and another, Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, resigned as MLC after he was elected in the recent Assembly elections.
With this, Ponguleti Prabhakar Reddy and Mohammad Ali Shabbir are the only two Congress faces left in the State’s Upper House, but their terms will end on March 29, 2019.
The Council is not alien to opposition leaders moving to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi out of political expediency, but it is for the first time that an exodus has wiped out any opposition from the House.
During the Chairman’s election in 2014, five Congress and two TDP MLCs defected to the TRS, reducing the grand old party’s strength to 12. In 2016, two more Congress MLCs defected to the TRS.
With more defections and retirements, the Opposition Congress’ strength has reduced to two.
Though, Pradesh Congress Committee president and Huzurnagar MLA N Uttam Kumar Reddy cried foul and tried to convince the Chairman against merging the legislature parties, defector Akula Lalitha said the people were with the TRS, which was what was prompting the defections. Uttam alleged that though they had lodged a complaint against the defections of Damodhar Reddy and Prabhakar two years back, no action has been taken till now.
“Why has there been no action despite calls for their disqualification?” Uttam Kumar Reddy asked the Chairman.
Santosh Kumar alleged that the alliance with the Telugu Desam Party was the main reason for the debacle of the Congress in the Assembly elections and wondered how the party high command forged an alliance with the party without informing party legislators.
He claimed that the “leadership crisis” in the State Congress had led to CLP merging with the TRSLP.
With the defections of four MLCs, resignation of one, and imminent end of term of another, the Council will soon be bereft of any Congress presence.