In an enormous setback to former Telangana chief minister Ok Chandrasekhar Rao and his Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), six of the occasion’s members of state legislative council (MLCs) defected to the Congress on Friday.
The six MLCs – T Bhanu Prasad Rao, Baswaraj Saraiah, Dande Vittal, M S Prabhakar, Yegge Mallesham and Boggarapu Dayanand – met at a resort round 11.30pm on Thursday and determined to change to the Congress.
“At round 1 am, they went to the residence of Telangana Congress president and chief minister A Revanth Reddy who simply returned from New Delhi and met him to precise their curiosity in becoming a member of the occasion,” a Congress chief accustomed to the event mentioned.
The MLCs had been formally inducted into the occasion by the chief minister within the presence of Telangana AICC in-charge Deepa Das Munshi, state income minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and different senior Congress leaders.
With the defection of six BRS lawmakers into Congress, the power of the ruling occasion within the 40-member state legislative council has gone as much as 10, whereas the power of the BRS has come down from 25 to 19. In addition to, there are 4 nominated MLCs, two members from AIMIM, one every from BJP, PRTU, and one unbiased, whereas two seats are vacant.
The BRS has already misplaced six MLAs to the Congress within the final 5 months – Danam Nagender, Kadiyam Srihari, Tellam Venkat Rao, Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Dr Sanjay Kumar and Kale Yadaiah.
BRS working president and former minister KT Rama Rao lashed out on the Congress for engineering the defections from the BRS. He took to X to present vent to his anger, saying the defections had been in opposition to the Congress manifesto which has promised an modification to the Tenth Schedule, in search of to mechanically disqualify the elected members who defect from one occasion to a different.
He recalled that BRS Rajya Sabha member Ok Keshava Rao resigned after becoming a member of Congress. “We welcome his resolution. What concerning the BRS MLA who defected and contested Lok Sabha on Congress ticket? What about half a dozen different BRS MLAs who defected to Congress?” he requested.
“@RahulGandhi is that this how you will uphold the structure? When you can’t make BRS MLAs resign, how would the nation belief that you simply had been dedicated to Schedule 10 amendments as per Congress manifesto? Yeh Kaisa Nyay Patra Hain?” KTR requested.
Within the meeting elections held on November 30, the BRS misplaced energy by successful solely 39 seats within the 119-member state meeting, as in opposition to 64 of the Congress. Their quantity fell to 38 following the defeat of its candidate in Might this 12 months within the by-election to Secunderabad Cantonment meeting seat which had fallen vacant as a result of demise of BRS MLA Lasya Nandita in a street accident in February.
Later, the BRS tally got here down additional to 32 with the defection of six of its MLAs to the Congress within the final 5 months. The power of the Congress within the meeting has gone as much as 71.