The Congress party has lost its leader of opposition status in Telangana assembly and plunged to third position only after the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), as the defected MLAs announced their merger with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
On Thursday, one more Congress MLA, Pilot Rohit Reddy representing Tandur assembly constituency defected to the TRS, bringing down the strength of the Congress to six, which is one seat less than the strength of the MIM which has seven MLAs.
In fact, the strength of the Congress in the assembly was eight after the defection of 11 MLAs into the TRS in the past and on Wednesday it went down to seven following the resignation of Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy from his Huzurnagar assembly seat on his election to Lok Sabha from Nalgonda in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Rohit Reddy’s defection resulted in the total number of defections to 12, which is two-thirds of the Congress strength.
Within hours of the latest defection, all the 12 defectors went to Speaker’s office in the assembly and submitted a letter to him, stating that they were all merging together and so, they should hereafter be treated as TRS MLAs.
According to latest reports, another Congress MLA Podem Veeraiah from Bhadrachalam is also ready to quit the party to join the TRS.
With this, only five MLAs would be left in the Congress – Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Seethakka, D Sridhar Babu, T Jayaprakash Reddy and K Rajagopal Reddy.
Though it was not totally unexpected development, the Congress leadership was hoping that the exodus would stop at least after the recent Lok Sabha elections in which three MPs from the party had won.
But after the local body elections which the TRS has swept, the merger of the defectors got expedited.