Hyderabad: Six members of Telangana’s main opposition party, the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), crossed over to the ruling Congress in the state’s legislative council past midnight on Thursday (July 4) in a rare show of urgency at chief minister Revanth Reddy’s residence soon after his return from Delhi.
The event was apparently convened in order to complete formalities before 4:57 AM on July 5 – a new moon day – which marked the commencement of inauspicious days as part of the Hindu calendar month of ashada masam.
With this, the strength of the BRS in the 40-member upper house has come down to 19. Two other BRS members had joined the Congress earlier.
On the other hand, the Congress, which had a lone member in the council six months ago, is steadily stabilising itself, having won three seats in by-elections to fill vacancies and recommending two others for appointment as part of the governor’s quota.
Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan is yet to give his consent to the resolution of the cabinet that was adopted during the term of his predecessor, Tamilisai Soundararajan.
The BRS MLCs who shifted their loyalty to the Congress last night are: Dande Vittal, T. Bhanuprasad Rao, Boggarapu Dayanand, M.S. Prabhakar Rao, Yegge Mallesham and Basavaraju Saraiah.
Earlier, former minister P. Mahender Reddy and Kuchukulla Damodar Reddy joined the Congress before the elections.
Six MLAs as well as K. Keshava Rao, a Rajya Sabha member of the BRS, had joined the Congress after it assumed power in the state.
Rao tendered his resignation from the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, with two more years left for the completion of his term.
The Congress had set its sights on strengthening its position both in the assembly and in the council amidst apprehensions that the BRS might destabilise its government.
It aims at ensuring the BRS’s merger with the Congress in both houses by winning over two-thirds of its members as required by law.
The strength of the Congress in the 119-member assembly went up to 71 after six BRS MLAs joined the party and it won an additional seat in a by-election, thus providing stability to the government in the lower house. The BRS’s tally came down to 32 in the process.
The Congress was concerned about the passage of Bills through the council, where the BRS enjoyed a brute majority and could defeat Congress legislations.
Now, the Congress can expect its Bills to be passed – though this may not be very easy – with 12 members already on its side.
The council’s chairman Gutha Sukhender Reddy and vice-chairman Banda Prakash have also been friendly with the Congress.
With two vacancies to be filled in the governor’s quota and a BRS MLC, K. Kavitha, lodged in Tihar jail in the Delhi liquor scam, the effective strength of the BRS in the council is only 18 which, sources said, is not strong enough to set up obstacles for the Congress government.
The BRS had nominated its own candidates for the two vacancies when it was in power before the assembly elections. But Soundararajan, the previous governor, did not approve its candidates on the grounds that they did not qualify for nomination.
Before the defection and byelection losses for the BRS, it had 30 members (including Kavitha) in the 40-member council.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which has two members, had also extended its hand of friendship to the Congress.
There is one BJP member and four representing the teachers’ constituencies in the council; the latter have voiced their support for the Congress.
The Congress can expect the support of the AIMIM and teacher MLCs to bail it out in certain critical situations during the passage of Bills.
The defections from the BRS picked up in the midst of a series of meetings held by party president K. Chandrashekar Rao ever since the early trends began. He held meetings with party workers from all assembly constituencies as per a schedule.
Rao emphasised that the party will rule the state for 15 years once it was elected to power. The people were already disgruntled with the Congress and hoped to see the BRS leading a farmer-friendly government across the country, he added.
The meetings assumed significance in the context of local body elections that are due soon. The BRS aims to check the erosion of its grassroots-level cadre, which might give the party a tough time in the elections.