India: MIM becomes biggest opposition group in Telangana

Hyderabad: Even as the Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy gave his nod to the merger of a group of 12 Congress MLAs with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), a shocked Congress party has decided to challenge its constitutional validity before the High Court.

The speaker accepted the request of the breakaway group for its merger and issued a formal bulletin saying that the group will be sitting in treasury benches in the assembly session.

With this the Congress was now left with only six MLAs and speculations were still rife that at least one more of them can jump the ship. By default Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) with 7 MLAs has emerged as the biggest opposition group in the assembly. However it is unlikely to be recognised as the main opposition party as that will require ten per cent of the total strength of the assembly. BJP has a lone member in the 119 member assembly.

The Congress party has lost the status of the main opposition and the TRS was now planning to approach the Speaker with a request to divest Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka of the post of Leader of Opposition. Vikramarka, who was the first Dalit leader of opposition occupied the post for only four months.

State Congress president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, who along with other senior party leaders were taken into preventive custody by the police to end their sit in protest in the assembly premises described the defection of Congress MLAs “an insult to the people’s mandate”.

Holding the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao responsible for encouraging unconstitutional and unethical practices in the state politics Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the CM does not want the opposition to have a voice to expose his corruption. “He is trying to throttle the democracy”, he added.

Reddy alleged that the Congress MLAs were either bribed or coerced to defect to the ruling party.

“Are you illegally merging Congress MLAs to save your son K.T. Rama Rao in case you nephew T. Harish Rao revolt against him”, Reddy asked.

Bhatti Vikramarka will also lead a 36-hour sit-in protest at Dharna Chowk on Friday to protest the defection. He alleged that the governor and the speaker had failed to discharge their constitutional duties.

Senior Congress leader Mohammad Ali Shabbir said, “The Speaker is acting like a slave of the Chief Minister. He had refused to meet us on Thursday. Then how come he met the 12 defectors?” he questioned.

Apart from the state assembly the Congress will also have a nominal presence in the legislative council. T. Jeevan Reddy is the lone Congress member in the Council, having elected from the graduates constituency.

The controversial merger of the Congress breakaway group was the culmination of almost six months long process, which the TRS had launched soon after winning the state assembly elections in December last.

This is the second consecutive term when the TRS resorted to wean away the MLAs of the opposition parties Congress and the TDP.

Apart from the 12 Congress MLAs, one TDP member has also joined the TRS taking the total strength of the ruling party to 104.