Defection of MLAs and MPs from one party to another has become a big farce in the recent years. Their disqualification from their posts for defying the anti-defection law has also become equally farcical, as it is done just at the fag end of their term.
Yet, the political parties create a fuss for the sake of record, knowing fully well that no action is taken against the defectors. Ironically, no party is exception for the same.
On Monday, hours after Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLA from Khairatabad and former minister Danam Nagender quietly defected to the Congress, the BRS leaders submitted a representation to state assembly speaker G Prasad Rao, asking him to disqualify Nagender.
A delegation of BRS MLAs comprising Padi Kaushik Reddy, Maganti Gopinath, Kaleru Venkatesh and Mutha Gopal met the Speaker and asked him to disqualify Nagender for shifting loyalties to the Congress.
They also pointed out a recent Supreme Court order that the decision on disqualification should be taken in three months. The BRS urged the Speaker to act by the Constitution as per the anti-defection law.
Senior BRS leader and former MP Vinod Kumar has said that Nagender, who joined the Congress, can’t escape disqualification.
He said that in the past, Speakers used to delay decisions on disqualification petitions but that situation has now changed with the Supreme Court order.
Vinod Kumar said that with the court setting a deadline for the Speaker, a decision on the disqualification petition can’t be delayed.
However, the BRS leaders have forgotten the fact that their boss had engineered the defection of the Congress MLAs into the BRS (then TRS) in 2014 as well as 2019 in the name of Telangana reconstruction.
In the last 10 years, as many as 39 MLAs from various parties defected to the BRS, without quitting their parties and assembly memberships. They include 23 MLAs in 2014 – 12 from TDP, five from Congress, 3 from YSRCP, two from BSP and one from CPI.
In 2019, as many as 16 MLAs, including 12 from the Congress, two from TDP and two independents, were admitted into the BRS.
“Senior BRS leaders K T Rama Rao and T Harish Rao openly poached the opposition MLAs,” Congress leader Parigi Rammohan Reddy said.