Ending months long suspense, Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker N Manohar on Saturday disqualified 15 members of the ruling Congress and main Opposition Telugu Desam Party.
The disqualification came after a prolonged hearing into the complaints of the two parties against the MlAs who had violated their whips and voted in favour of no trust motion moved by Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) against the N Kiran Kumar Reddy Government in March last.
But the main grouse of the two parties against the MlAs was their defection to the YSR Congress of YS Jaganmohan Reddy. Those disqualified includes 9 MlAS of Congress and six of the TDP.
Nine Congress MlAs include Sujjaykrishna Ranga Rao (Bobbili, Vizianagaram), Alla Naani (Eluru, West Godavari), Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy (Punganur, Chittoor), G Ravi Kumar (Addanki, Prakasham), Jogi Ramesh (Pedana, Krishna), D Chandrashekhar Reddy, (Kakinada, East Godavari), Shivaprasad Reddy (Darsi, Prakasham), M Rajesh Kumar (Chintalapudi, West Godavari), Perni Naani (Machlipatanam, Krishna).
Disqualified TDP MlAs include P Sai Raj (Ichchapuram, Srikakulam), Parveen Kumar Reddy (Tambalapally, Chittoor), Amarnath Reddy, (Palmaneru, Chittoor), Balanagi Reddy (Mantralayam, Kurnool ), T Vanitha, (Gopalapuram,West Godavari), Kodali Naani (Gudivada, Krishna ). The suspension has come just couple of days before the resumption of Budget Session of State Assembly.
The MlAs had openly admitted wrongdoing and dared their parties to take action against them and urged the Speaker to disqualify them immediately. The MlAs as well as the beneficiary party —YSRCP — were keen for an early disqualification to pave the way for by-elections. But now that less than one year is left for the next Assembly elections, it will not be mandatory for the Election Commission to conduct the by-elections.
Still, complaint against four other MlAs is pending with the Speaker. They include Venugopala Chary, Harishwar Reddy and G Kamlakar (all from Telangana) and Rama Kotaiah from Andhra. The three
TDP rebels are from Telangana and they had switched their loyalties to the TRS as they were unhappy with the party line on Telangana statehood issue.
Despite the disqualification of 15 MlAs, there was no threat to the Kiran Kumar Reddy Government as the overall strength of the 295-member Assembly has also come down to 271. While the half-way mark is 136, the Congress has 146 members and the scattered Opposition is no position to throw a challenge to the Government.