HYDERABAD: With the Speaker deciding against disqualifying the MLAs, who are in the Jagan Mohan Reddy camp for the time being, all eyes are riveted on how they will behave in the Assembly session beginning on Monday.
“We cannot sit as a single group. They will not allow it. We, too, cannot ask him (the Speaker) to treat us as a separate group,” said Pilli Subhas Chandra Bose, leader of the J camp MLAs.
The group is yet to decide on the issues on which to corner the government. “There are several issues. We will have to discuss our strategy in the Assembly,” Bose said. However, some contours of the J camp strategy are apparent. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s mother Y S Vijayamma’s letter to the Speaker indicates that the MLAs may insist that the terms of reference of the committee to probe land allotments should cover the 9-year TDP regime of Chandrababu Naidu as well.
The decision of the Speaker to postpone the disqualification of the rebel MLAs has in fact come as a shot in the arm to them. They now dare the Congress to disqualify them if it has the courage to face byelections.
The decision to defer disqualification was taken after the Congress high command suggested that it would be better to wait till the Election Commission announces byelections for seven seats that are at present vacant. Of the seven, only one is in coastal Andhra (Kovur), while the rest are in Telangana. The TRS and TDP also are preparing their weapons to attack the government. TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, by making an appeal to his MLAs to disrupt the Governor’s address on Monday, has indicated to them the line that must be taken: embarrass the government on the Telangana issue. There, however, may not be a repeat of the incidents of last year, when elected reps from Telangana, mostly TRS MLAs, disrupted the Governor’s address, tore copies of his speech and physically prevented him from completing his address to the legislature.
The TDP, apart from harping on the farmers’ issue, will also rake up the flourishing business of liquor syndicates and the alleged involvement of Excise Minister Mopidevi Venkataramana in it. The other issues include the delay in reimbursement of tuition fee to colleges and the ongoing CBI investigation into the Emaar scam and Jagan’s assets case.