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Congress cocksure of by-polls
Welcoming the move of the Supreme Court in serving notices to Telangana Assembly Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary and MLAs over defections to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Congress on Thursday described this as an indication towards disqualification of 25 MLAs and asked party cadre and leaders to start preparations for by-elections.
SC NOTICES TO SPEAKER, DEFECTORS
Buoyed by the notices of the apex court to the State Assembly Speaker and 25 MLAs who defected to the TRS, Cong leadership exhorts cadres to prepare for by-elections
Hyderabad: Welcoming the move of the Supreme Court in serving notices to Telangana Assembly Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary and MLAs over defections to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Congress on Thursday described this as an indication towards disqualification of 25 MLAs and asked party cadre and leaders to start preparations for by-elections.
Addressing a press conference at Congress Legislature Party office here, Leader of Opposition in Telangana State Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir hailed the notices served by the Supreme Court to the Assembly Speaker and 25 other MLAs who defected to the ruling TRS from Opposition parties.
He informed that the Supreme Court bench, comprising Justice Joseph Kurian and Justice Shiva Kirthi Singh, had served notices following a petition filed by Congress MLA A Sampath Kumar, who questioned inaction by the Speaker on the disqualification petitions filed against defectors.
“Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has made a mockery of parliamentary democracy. He made a kind of record by engineering 47 defections in 27 months. They include 25 MLAs, 18 MLCs and four MPs. He gave a shameful start to the new State by creating a record for repeated violation of constitution and law,” he said.
Ali said that by not taking action against MLAs - 12 from TDP, seven from Congress, three from YSRCP, two from BSP and one from CPI, the speaker had proved that he was functioning under the influence of the Chief Minister. He hoped that the Supreme Court would take action against legislators who defected to the TRS.
“All of them will soon get disqualified and holding of by-elections in those 25 Assembly segments will be inevitable,” he said and asked the party cadre to prepare for the same. The leader said the Congress had put the entire cadre on alert mode in view of the possible by-elections in early 2017. He said the Congress was fully geared up to face the by-polls and it would emerge victorious.
He said the Congress would approach people seeking their support against the legislators who defected to the TRS. “The defectors have not only cheated their parties, but also back-stabbed the people of their constituencies.
People have elected them as MLAs with the hope that they would represent and resolve their problems. However, they preferred money, posts and other incentives over people and defected to the ruling party. This is completely against the democratic norms and such people should never be elected to pious institutions like Assembly, Council or Parliament,” he said.
The Supreme Court has given three weeks time to the Speaker and defectors to reply to the notices. Congress MP and senior counsel Vivek Tankha was arguing the case in the Supreme Court on behalf of Sampath Kumar, he said.
