In a huge setback to former Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), six of the party’s members of state legislative council (MLCs) defected to the Congress on Friday.
The six MLCs – T Bhanu Prasad Rao, Baswaraj Saraiah, Dande Vittal, M S Prabhakar, Yegge Mallesham and Boggarapu Dayanand – met at a hotel around 11.30pm on Thursday and decided to switch to the Congress.
“At around 1 am, they went to the residence of Telangana Congress president and chief minister A Revanth Reddy who just returned from New Delhi and met him to express their interest in joining the party,” a Congress leader familiar with the development said.
The MLCs were formally inducted into the party by the chief minister in the presence of Telangana AICC in-charge Deepa Das Munshi, state revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and other senior Congress leaders.
With the defection of six BRS lawmakers into Congress, the strength of the ruling party in the 40-member state legislative council has gone up to 10, while the strength of the BRS has come down from 25 to 19. Besides, there are four nominated MLCs, two members from AIMIM, one each from BJP, PRTU, and one independent, while two seats are vacant.
The BRS has already lost six MLAs to the Congress in the last five months – Danam Nagender, Kadiyam Srihari, Tellam Venkat Rao, Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Dr Sanjay Kumar and Kale Yadaiah.
BRS working president and former minister KT Rama Rao lashed out at the Congress for engineering the defections from the BRS. He took to X to give vent to his anger, saying the defections were against the Congress manifesto which has promised an amendment to the Tenth Schedule, seeking to automatically disqualify the elected members who defect from one party to another.
He recalled that BRS Rajya Sabha member K Keshava Rao resigned after joining Congress. “We welcome his decision. What about the BRS MLA who defected and contested Lok Sabha on Congress ticket? What about half a dozen other BRS MLAs who defected to Congress?” he asked.
“@RahulGandhi is this how you are going to uphold the constitution? If you can’t make BRS MLAs resign, how would the nation trust that you were committed to Schedule 10 amendments as per Congress manifesto? Yeh Kaisa Nyay Patra Hain?” KTR asked.
In the assembly elections held on November 30, the BRS lost power by winning only 39 seats in the 119-member state assembly, as against 64 of the Congress. Their number fell to 38 following the defeat of its candidate in May this year in the by-election to Secunderabad Cantonment assembly seat which had fallen vacant due to the death of BRS MLA Lasya Nandita in a road accident in February.
Later, the BRS tally came down further to 32 with the defection of six of its MLAs to the Congress in the last five months. The strength of the Congress in the assembly has gone up to 71.
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