Will Telangana Speaker Disqualify MLA Danam Nagender on January 30?
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
Hyderabad, Jan 28 (NationPress) The Speaker of the Telangana Assembly, Gaddam Prasad Kumar, is set to address the disqualification petition concerning MLA Danam Nagender on January 30. Nagender, who was elected under the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) banner, is accused of switching allegiance to the ruling Congress party.
A notice has been issued to Nagender, instructing him to appear during the hearing. The BRS MLA Kaushik Reddy, who initiated the disqualification petition, has also been called to present his case.
On the same day, the Speaker will also review a petition from the BJP floor leader A. Maheshwar Reddy, which seeks to disqualify Nagender.
In response, Nagender has submitted an affidavit urging the Speaker to dismiss the petition against him.
The former minister maintains that he has not resigned from the BRS and has not received any notification regarding his suspension from the party.
Elected as the BRS candidate from the Khairatabad constituency in Hyderabad in 2023, Nagender mentioned that he attended a meeting of the Congress party in March 2024 solely in his personal capacity.
Previously, the Speaker dismissed petitions to disqualify seven out of ten BRS MLAs who were alleged to have defected to Congress in 2024, stating that the petitioners failed to provide sufficient evidence of defection. He asserted that the MLAs remain technically within the BRS.
Last year, the Speaker concluded hearings on disqualification petitions for eight MLAs and reserved the orders. The ruling on the disqualification plea for MLA Sanjay Kumar is still pending.
Hearings for two other MLAs, Danam Nagender and Kadiyam Srihari, could not be conducted as they did not respond to the notices.
While the BRS claims that these MLAs have openly joined Congress and even sat on the Treasury Benches, the MLAs refute this, asserting that they only met with Chief Minister Revanth Reddy to request funding for their constituencies.
The BRS has highlighted that Nagender not only joined Congress but also contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Secunderabad as a Congress candidate. Additionally, it alleges that Srihari actively campaigned for his daughter Kadiyam Kaviya, who ran for Lok Sabha from the Warangal constituency as a Congress nominee.