A day after their parliamentary colleagues made a move towards the BJP, five Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs on Friday met Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to challenge their defection and merger at the legislature party level.

The TDP MPs led by Jayadev Galla asserted that that the merger of the defected TDP MPs could take place only at the organisational level but not at the level of legislature party.  

"Yesterday four Rajya Sabha members of the TDP had given a letter saying that they are merging the legislature party in Rajya Sabha and since they have 2/3rd majority, it should be accepted without any disqualification. Having gone through the law what we now understand is, merger of a political party has to take place at only organisational level. It cannot take place at legislature party level. Since TDP & BJP have not merged at the organisational level this is not a legal merger," Galla said after meeting the Vice President.

The TDP said the four MPs, who have joined the BJP, have "no authority nor are they empowered to merger the TDP with the BJP".

 Four of its six Rajya Sabha members of the TDP , including party chief N Chandrababu Naidu's close confidants YS Chowdary and CM Ramesh had on Thursday  joined BJP here in presence of the party's working president J P Nadda.

The four TDP RS MPs had also met Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman  and  submitted a resolution, saying they have decided to merge TDP parliamentary party in Rajya Sabha with BJP under paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution.

With the four TDP MPs merging with the BJP, the tally of the ruling party will go up from 71 to 75 in the Rajya Sabha. After joining the BJP Chowdary said: "The mood of the nation was clear in recent elections."

Incidentally, Income Tax (IT) department had raided residential and official premises of Chowdary and Ramesh last year over allegations of tax evasion and money laundering. Both had then claimed innocence.

When asked about cases of financial fraud against him, Chowdary reportedly said,  "CBI and ED have examined me for a case which belongs to a third party. These are not direct cases against me. I have never done any kind of fraud, forgery, cheating in my entire life. An investigation is going on, which can go against anyone, doesn't mean I have done something."