BRS Leaders Meet Telangana Assembly Speaker, Demand Action Against MLA Nagender, Who Joined Congress

As a steady stream of leaders leave the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), the pink party decided to take action against its Khairtabad MLA, Danam Nagender, who joined the Congress on Sunday.

A few BRS leaders, including Padi Kaushik Reddy, Kaleru Venkatesh and Mutha Gopal met Telangana Speaker G Prasad Kumar on Monday and requested him to disqualify Nagender from the Assembly due to violation of the anti-defection law.

The BRS argues that since Nagender won the Khairtabad Assembly seat with BRS seat, it is unlawful of him to join the Congress ahead of Lok Sabha elections. For Nagender, the Congress is a familiar party as he was in the Congress from 1994 to 2004. He rejoined the Grand Old Party in 2009 after a stint in the TDP and was part of the YS Rajasekhar Reddy cabinet. In 2018, Nagender joined the BRS.

After the defections, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said that Congress’ gates are now open to leaders from other parties. BRS leaders have said that it is hypocritical of the chief minister to welcome defectors with open arms because he himself was a harsh critic of turncoats when he was in the Opposition. At that time, he had asked voters not to choose leaders who quit Congress to join BRS.

Is there a strong case for Danam Nagender’s disqualification? E Venkateshu, a professor of political science in Hyderabad Central University, said, “For the last few years, the anti-defection law is not being followed. On some or the other technical ground, the ruling parties are managing to retain turncoats. From 2014 onwards, party defections are rampant, but there was hardly any action taken against them. However, since we are talking about only one MLA here, there is a possibility he might resign from the Congress.”

Inspired by Andhra Pradesh?

The BRS is taking a leaf out of AP’s notebook. In February this year, Andhra Pradesh Assembly speaker Tammineni Seetharam disqualified eight MLAs – four each from YSR Congress Party and Telugu Desam Party, for shifting royalties to rival parties. He issued the orders under anti-defection law. It is likely that the BRS is hoping for a similar resolution after they submitted their request to Telangana Assembly Speaker.

History Repeats Itself

When the BRS was in power, 26 MLAs from other parties had joined it in between 2014 and 2018. KCR had been accused of making a mockery of the anti-defection law. When the plea for disqualification of these turncoats was put before the then Assembly Speaker S Madhusudana Chary, he sat on the request until KCR dissolved the Assembly.