12 Telangana Congress MLAs merge with TRS

Hyderabad, June 6 (IANS) Twelve Congress MLAs in Telangana on Thursday merged with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

Speaker P. Srinivas Reddy officially recognized the group of 12 members of Assembly belonging to the main opposition Congress a part of TRS, hours after they called on him and submitted him a letter, seeking Congress Legislature Party's merger with the TRS.

State Legislature Secretary V. Narasimha Charyulu issued a bulletin, saying TRS also communicated to the Speaker that it agreed to the request of 12 MLAs into the party and requested him to take necessary action.

"Therefore, the Speaker has taken note that the said 12 members of Congress Legislature Party who constitute two-thirds of its total members in the Telangana Legislative Assembly are deemed to have been merged with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party in terms of Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution," said the bulletin.

"Accordingly, seats are allotted to them along with members of Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party in the House," it added.

In Assembly elections held in December last year, the Congress had won 19 members in 120-member Assembly (including a nominated member).

Under Anti-Defection Act, the defectors required two-third majority to seek merger with any party.

The development came a day after state Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy resigned from Assembly as he was elected to Lok Sabha from Nalgonda in the recent elections.

This brought down Congress' strength to 18 and the defectors required 12 MLAs to seek CLP's merger with TRS.

Following the meeting of the defectors with the Speaker, CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, state Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, senior leaders D. Sridhar Babu, Mohammed Ali Shabbir and other leaders began a flash protest at Mahatma Gandhi statue in the Assembly premises.

They wore black ribbons around their mouth to lodge their protest over the defections. They demanded that the MLAs who were elected on their party symbol but were now seeking merger with TRS should be disqualified.

The Congress leaders said they made several representations to the Speaker for disqualification of MLAs, but he took no action, but now he seems to be acting swiftly on the request of defectors.

Uttam Kumar Reddy questioned the Speaker as to how he can take a decision on merger when their petition was pending in the High Court.

Earlier, Congress Legislature Party in state Legislative Council merged with TRS in a similar way. If this happens in Assembly, the Congress will lose the status of main opposition.

A party needs one-tenth of the strength of a House to have the status of main opposition.

The TRS had won 88 seats in Assembly elections. After the polls, two independents and one of the two legislators of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) joined the TRS. With the merger of 12 Congress party TRS, the strength of the ruling party will go up to 104 (including a nominated member).

This has brought down the Congress tally to six. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) may get the status of main opposition. AIMIM, an ally of TRS, has seven MLAs.