HYDERABAD: Congress in-charge for Telangana, RC Khuntia, and TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Friday came down heavily on Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Assembly Speaker P Srinivasa Reddy for admitting 12 Congress legislators into the TRS.
Speaking to media persons here, the two Congress leaders said that Chandrasekhar Rao was trying to ensure his party has no opposition in the Assembly and that he wanted Congress leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka to lose his Opposition leader status since ‘he doesn’t want a Dalit to have the privilege’. Khuntia said: “Telangana State has become the address for dictatorship. Though TRS has a full majority in the Assembly, yet the chief minister wants to engineer defections.”
Uttam Kumar Reddy said that though CLP and PCC had submitted a petition against the MLAs when they expressed their intent to join the TRS, no action was taken. “The 12 MLAs did not join TRS en masse. They joined TRS individually and on different dates. Disqualification petitions against them are pending with the Speaker,” he said.
He pointed out that Bhatti Vikramarka had to submit the disqualification petition to Srinivasa Reddy in Banswada, his native place, as the Speaker seems to be afraid of even coming to Hyderabad. He dared the MLAs who had defected to resign from their positions and seek re-election to the Assembly afresh. He said that the party would file a fresh petition in Telangana High Court on Monday. “We are trying to figure out how they (MLAs) had benefited from the TRS. We will also lodge a complaint with the Lokpal,” he said. The two leaders said that the party planned to organise an agitation at Dharna Chowk at 11 am on Saturday.