Congress leaders to meet Speaker on Monday over revoking of MLAs

Hyderabad, June 9 (Maxim News): The reported meeting between Telangana Assembly Speaker C. Madusudhana Chary and CLP Leader and Leader of the Opposition K. Jana Reddy on Monday June 11 assumed much political significance as the revoking of expulsion of two Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and C S Sampath Kumar is still hanging fire despite the High Court order.

The two Congress MLAs were expelled from the Assembly for their alleged unruly behaviour during the Governor’s address to the joint sitting of the state legislature on the opening day of the budget session recently and in which the Council Chairman Swamy Goud sustained injuries while the Congress members were staging protests in the Well of the House. When a Single Judge of the High Court set aside their expulsion, 12 TRS MLAS filed an appeal but this too fell flat following a division bench of the high court on June 4 dismissing the appeal.

The TRS Government has been sitting tight on revoking the expulsion of the two Congress MLAS leading to a bitter political war between the ruling TRS and the Congress. There was also a suggestion by Komatireddy Venkatreddy that all the 12 Congress MLAs should resign enmasse to express solidarity and unity of the party on the issue. Even the TRS members began to taunt and challenged the Congress members to quit enmasse and face the by-elections. However, the Congress legislators seemed to be divided about quitting and risk facing by-elections.

At an informal meeting of the Telangana Congress Legislature Party held at the residence of the CLP leader and Leader of the Opposition K. Jana Reddy on Friday the MLAs seemed to have differed about resigning as there was no scope for by-elections even if they quit. Instead the party decided to express their protest and anguish at the ruling TRS by going on a day’s mass hunger strike by the legislators and also submitting a memorandum to the Chief Secretary, the President Of India, if need be.

In the meantime the Assembly Speaker Madusudhana Chary seemed to have accepted to give an audience to the C LP Leader Jana Reddy on Monday triggering off intense political debate and speculations. It is pertinent to note here that the Speaker has for quite some time sitting tight in taking any decision with regard to the petitions demanding disqualification of many legislators who had crossed over from Congress and TDP to the ruling TRS. Thus when the Speaker has been quite for so long on the disqualification of “jumping jacks” of Congress, TDP and other opposition parties for “obvious” reasons, political circles wonder whether he would act in revoking the expulsion of the two Congress MLAs.

Since the 2019 elections are round the corner, political circles feel that if the expulsions were not revoked it might give an opportunity the Congress to target the TRS during the campaigning by accusing the ruling TRS of ushering a draconian rule in the state. The Congress which has already launched a blitzkrieg against Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and the TRS by painting them as anti-people and anti-state. Thus the non-revocation of the expulsion of the two Congress MLAs might provide further ammunition to the party to blazing against the TRS administration. Apart from moving the higher courts against the TRS on charges of contempt of court, the Congress also would take the opportunity to accuse KCR of being anti-judiciary.

Political circles feel that KCR and TRS can wriggle out of this unsavoury campaign against them by abiding by the High Court verdict and revoke the expulsion of the two Congress MLAs. Besides the ruling party can also boast of upholding democratic values contrary to the negative propaganda of the Congress. However informed circles feel that the Assembly Speaker might also try to do a tight rope walking this issue too like that of the disqualification of defected MLAs. Thus he might take umbrage of certain legislature practices in taking a decision on such issue. It is being argued that since the Speaker had expelled the two Congress MLAs based on a resolution of the Assembly, the Speaker might put off any decision on his own by asserting that it was upto the Assembly to take a call on this as it was based on its resolution that the expulsion action was taken. Thus Monday’s meeting of the Speaker and CLP leader is being keenly watched by political circles (Maxim News).