The crushing defeat in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation seems to have opened a Pandora’s box for the Telugu Desam Party in Telangana.
Ten Telugu Desam Party members of Telangana Assembly, who have defected to ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti on Friday made the first formal move for a merger with the TRS.
The legislators wrote a letter on Friday to the Telangana Assembly Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary seeking the formal merger of their group in to the TRS.
A meeting of the legislators decided to write to the Speaker to fulfill a technical requirement for them to be treated as the TRS members in the Assembly
Of the 15 MlAs elected on the TDP ticket in Telangana in 2014, ten have already defected to the TRS. Under the Anti Defection law if two third members of a political party defect to another party, it is not treated as defection as merger. However in case of less numbers changing the parties the speaker can disqualify them as defectors.
In the letter the TDP legislators urged the speaker for his nod to their merger under section 4 of the Xth Schedule of the constitution.
The letter was signed by E Dayakar Rao, Tasalani Srinivas Yadav, G Sayanna, Prakash Goud, T Krishna Reddy, M Krishna Reddy, M Krishna Rao, Ch Dharma Reddy, Vivekananda Goud and Rajender Reddy.
After Telugu Desam floor leader in the state assembly E Dayaka Rao and T Prakash Goud joined the TRS on Wednesday, another TDP MlA S Rajender Reddy from Narayanpet also followed the suit on Thursday taking the total number of defections from TDP to TRS to ten.
With this the strength of TRS in the State Assembly has gone up to 81. If the party wins the by election in Naraynkhed Assembly constituency in Medak district later this week, the party’s strength will increase further. TRS, which had only 63 members after 2014 polls has bolstered its strength by attracting members from TDP as well As Congress.
Tenth Schedule of the constitution gives absolute power to the Speaker in matters of merger of parties, defections and accepting the resignations of the members.
After a series of defections from TDP and the Congress to the TRS over the last one and a half years, the Speaker Madhusudhan Chary was under pressure from the Opposition parties to take action against the defectors, accept their resignations and pave for by elections. However while Chary kept the matter pending and delaying a decision, the Opposition parties had taken the issue to the High Court. However it did not deter the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao from inducting at least one of the defectors T Srinivas Yadav in to his cabinet.
However now the request of the defecting members for a formal merger with the TRS can trigger off a new legal debate as experts differ on who can seek the merger. While some say only a party can seek a merger, in some cases the presiding officers held the view that even legislature parties can also seek merger.
Telangana law minister A Indra Kiran Reddy said that there was no hurdle in the way of the merger as two third members of TDP had joined the TRS. “some more members were also expected to join”, he said.
With this the TDP was now left only with five members in the State Assembly. While one of the A Revanth Reddy, now the floor leader of the party, is in deep legal trouble over his alleged involvement in cash for vote scandal, the Anti Corruption Bureau was also investigating in to possible role of another TDP MlA Maganti Babu.