Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Wednesday had a message for BRS MLAs crossing over to the ruling Congress, declaring, “Defectors need not worry… there will be no by-polls”.
What did he mean?
Ten MLAs from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi had defected to the Congress after the 2023 Assembly election – in which the latter scored a big win, claiming 64 of 119 seats and ousting K Chandrasekhar Rao’s party, which had been in power since the state was formed in 2014.
Mr Reddy, it appears, was reassuring these ten, and any others who might join, that they will not have to resign and contest a mid-term election to win back their seats.
The comment comes as the Supreme Court is hearing a case relating to the defection of three of those MLAs, including one who contested last year’s Lok Sabha election as a Congress candidate, lost, and then went back to being an elected lawmaker from the BRS.
In a hearing on Tuesday a bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice AG Masih noted the BRS’ application to disqualify those three had been pending for nearly a year before the Speaker.
The court asked the Speaker why a decision had not been made either way.
“As on today (i.e., Tuesday), how much time has passed since the first application? Why has the Speaker’s office not set a deadline for deciding these petitions,” the court asked.
Specifically, the court was hearing a plea by the BRS to direct the Speaker to make a ruling within four weeks, which led to a related observation – the court recalled the controversy when the Shiv Sena split, and each faction demanded the disqualification of MLAs from the other.
Then the Supreme Court had directed the Maharashtra Speaker to rule within a set time. On Tuesday Justices Gavai and Masih observed that, prima facie, it could intervene in this case too.
The court also took into consideration the fact the Telangana High Court had, in September last year, directed the Speaker to hear this matter within four weeks, but nothing happened.
A notice was issued only in January and, even after that, that BRS MLA contested the Lok Sabha poll as a Congress candidate. The Speaker issued a fresh notice last month – after an observation by the Supreme Court – but even that deadline came and went, the BRS said.
The next hearing in this case, the Supreme Court had said, will take place on April 3.
The defections had provoked a scathing attack from senior BRS leader KT Rama Rao, who fired a ‘save the Constitution’ swipe at the Congress and its senior leader, Rahul Gandhi.
READ | KTR’s “Save Constitution” Swipe At Congress As BRS Faces Defections
It also led to questions about application of the anti-defection law and time taken by the Speaker to rule on petitions seeking to disqualify MLAs who defect from one side to another.
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