Congress suffers another jolt as CLP merges in TRSLP in Council

Hyderabad: Exactly 10 days after suffering a shocking defeat in the hands of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Congress on Friday suffered another setback with Telangana Legislative Council chairman K Swamy Goud declaring that the Congress Legislature Party had been merged with Telangana Legislature Party in the legislative council.

The Congress lost badly in the Assembly elections by winning only 19 of the 119 seats. After two MLCs joined the TRS, the group became two thirds of the existing party in the council, which allowed the chairman to merge the party with the TRS. In a bulletin issued by the Legislative Council, Legislature Secretary V Narasimha Charyulu said that the Chairman had recognised the merger of CLP with TRSLP as per Paragraph four of the Tenth Schedule of Constitution of India.

Henceforth, Akula Lalitha, T Santosh Kumar, M S Prabhakar Rao and K Damodar Reddy will be treated as the members of Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party in Telangana Legislative Council and they will be allotted seats in the House accordingly.

Congress MLCs Akula Lalitha and Santosh Kumar who met Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday night, met chairman of Legislative Council Swamy Goud on Friday morning and informed their joining of TRS.

Along with two other Congress MLCs who already joined the TRS, they made a petition with the chairman and informed that they want merger of Congress Legislature Party in Council with the TRS. Now the Congress is left with two MLCs in the Council, Mohammad Ali Shabbir and Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy. The Congress is likely to lose leader of the Opposition post in the Council.

Soon after the merger of the MLCs, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and leader of the Opposition in Council Shabbir Ali reached the Assembly premises and met the Chairman of the Council.

They told the chairman that the MLCs who have defected to the TRS have no power to hold a meeting of the CLP and to take a decision to merge the party with ruling party. They said that they have already made an appeal to the chairman to disqualify two MLCs K Damodar Reddy and MS Prabhakar who are sailing with the TRS.

They said that CLP meeting could not be held without the permission of its leader and the meeting being held by the Council members was illegal and their petition should not be taken into consideration. With the merger of the CLP into TRSLP, the total strength of Congress has fallen to two from seven. The party has seven MLCs before Assembly election, one MLC Komatiredddy Rajagopal Reddy resigned after he has been elected to Assembly and with this the number went down to six.

MLC MS Prabhakar already joined the TRS and no action has been taken against him under the Anti Defection Law for two years. Before the commencement of Assembly elections, MLC Damodar Reddy switched loyalty to the TRS. With the loss of four MLCs in the recent period the Congress number in the Council has come down to two. On the other hand, the Congress would lose all its MLCs in March after the retirement of the Shabbir Ali and Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy. It has no chances of winning more than one seat in the Council from the Assembly MLAs constituency.