It is a known fact that Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan had been a hard-core Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Tamil Nadu before taking up the gubernatorial post.
Now that she is Telangana, being ruled by an opposition party – Telangana Rashtra Samithi, there is certainly a clash of political interests between her and the TRS government headed by K Chandrasekhar Rao.
However, being in a Constitutional position, she cannot openly flaunt her association with the saffron party, but she can put her foot down when such a clash of political interests arises between the BJP and the TRS.
That is what Tamilisai has done by keeping in abeyance a recommendation made by the KCR government.
During the cabinet meeting last month on August 1, the TRS government cleared the nomination of Padi Kaushik Reddy as the member of legislative council (MLC) under the Governor’s quota.
Interestingly, Tamilisai has not approved Kaushik Reddy’s nomination as an MLC even after a month.
Normally, when a Cabinet takes a decision and recommends the same to the Governor, the latter has to approve the decision at the earliest.
But Tamilisai has not signed the file endorsing Kaushik Reddy’s nomination as an MLC even after a month.
The reason is simple: Kaushik Reddy hails from Huzurabad assembly constituency and he had unsuccessfully contested the assembly polls in 2018 against former minister Eatala Rajender on the Congress ticket.
Now, Kaushik Reddy joined the TRS and hoped to contest the by-elections from Huzurabad, but KCR could not give him ticket due to caste equations.
Instead, he chose to nominate Reddy to the legislative council under Governor’s quota, within 10 days of his defection from the Congress to the TRS.
The BJP, which is fielding Rajender as its candidate in Huzurabad, has cried foul over nominating a defector as an MLC only to gain political mileage in the elections.
That is precisely why Tamilisai refused to clear his nomination, at least till the by-election to Huzurabad is over. She has made it clear in an informal chat with the media at Raj Bhavan on Wednesday.
“You can attribute whatever reason to my decision to keep the nomination in pending. You can give whatever interpretation you want,” she told reporters to a question whether the Huzurabad by-election was the reason for the delay.
She said she had every right to postpone her decision on the nomination of Kaushik Reddy as the MLC.
“Since it has to be done under the Governor’s quota, I can use my discretion and take whatever decision I can appropriately,” she said.
Tamilisai pointed out that the cabinet recommended Kaushik Reddy’s name for social service.
“I need to make a thorough study of what kind of social service he had done and why he should be considered under this category. For that, I need time before taking a decision on the cabinet recommendation. I have that right,” she said.