More articles by

Lalita Iyer
Lalita Iyer

DISRUPTION

9 Congress, 2 TDP MLAs suspended from Telangana Assembly

Eleven opposition members of the Congress and Telugu Desam Party were suspended for a day from the Telangana Assembly on Saturday for disrupting the proceedings over defection of their party colleagues to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). 

Telangana-assembly-pti

Amid noisy scenes, opposition members stormed the well of the House, demanding discussion on their adjournment motion over the issue of disqualification of defectors under the anti-defection law.

Trouble broke out as soon as the House assembled for the day when the opposition members insisted on taking up their adjournment motion. Speaker S. Madhusudhana Chary appealed for calm but to no effect, and as the melee continued, the Legislative Affairs Minister T. Harish Rao moved a resolution seeking suspension of nine Congress and two TDP members for a day for obstructing the proceedings.

Harish Rao accused the members of deliberately stalling the proceedings and warned, “We will not tolerate such obstructionist approach." Soon after, the speaker announced their suspension and asked them to leave the House. The suspended TDP members later staged a sit-in near the speaker’s office. 

The Congress legislators Bhatti Vikramarka, Geetha Reddy and Jeevan Reddy accused the TRS government of muzzling the voice of the opposition and turning the state into a family fiefdom of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. They alleged that their suspension was against principles of democracy.

Congress leader K. Jana Reddy said that the ruling party had shown unusual haste in suspending the members without any warning and without seeking the opinions of other floor leaders. "Such a thing has never happened in the past,” Reddy said.

The TRS, which came to power in 2014 elections, has been poaching on other party legislators, and 20 legislators have crossed the floor so far. The TDP bore the brunt with 12 of its 15 legislators, including the party’s floor leader E. Dayakar Rao, defecting to the TRS. 

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.
Topics : #Telangana

Related Reading

    Show more