HYDERABAD: Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan rejected the proposal of the State Cabinet to nominate BRS leaders Dasoju Sravan and K Satyanarayana to the Legislative Council under the Governor's quota.
The State Cabinet, which met in the first week of August, recommended the names of Sravan and Satyanrayana for nominating them for the Legislative Council under the Governor's quota. However, after examining the nominations for over one and half a month, the Governor wrote a letter to the Chief Minister stating that their nominations were rejected.
"My earnest request to the Cabinet and Chief Minister is to avoid such politically aligned people from filling up nominated posts under article 171(5) of the Constitution of India, defeating its objectives and enactment and consider only genuinely eminent persons in the respective field," the Governor said in her letter and added that as such, the nominations of Dasoju Sravan and Kurra Satyanrayana as members of the Legislative Council are rejected. The Governor sent two separate letters to the Chief Minister in this regard.
"The summary of Dasoju Sravan Kumar indicates his active participation in politics, corporate and academic sectors. His summary does not indicate any special achievements in literature, science, art, cooperative movement and social service...," the Governor said in the letter.
"There are several eminent non-politically affiliated people eminently recognised in our state, fulfilling the pre-requisites prescribed under article 171(5) of the Constitution of India. Non-consideration of those people and consideration of politically aligned persons to fill the post earmarked for nomination in those fields will be a de-recognition of the merits and non-recognition of the contribution of those people with special knowledge and experience in the fields mentioned in Article 171(5) of the Constitution of India and these sorts of nominations intending to fill up the specially nominated posts will make the article 171(5) purposeless, which may not be the intention of the Legislation and it will take away the opportunities to genuine people fulfilling those qualifications," the Governor said in the letter.
Reacting to the Governor's decision BRS leader Dasoju Sravan told Express that: "social work and politics have distinct roles and purposes, but they are not mutually exclusive. Social workers may engage in advocacy and lobbying to influence policy changes, and politicians may work to address social issues through legislation. The two fields often intersect when addressing complex social problems and striving for societal improvements".
It may be recalled that the Governor also rejected the nomination of another BRS lader Padi Kaushik Reddy to nominate him as an MLC under the Governor's quota in November 2021. Later, the ruling BRS sent Kaushik Reddy to the Legislative Council under the MLAs quota.