In Telangana, defections prompt Congress to boycott MLC polls

The poaching of Opposition legislators by the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had an unusual fallout in Telangana. The Congress has boycotted the elections to the state Legislative Council on Tuesday as a mark of protest against what it calls a ‘systematic attempt to engineer defections.’

This is an unprecedented development where a political party has issued a whip to its members not to participate in the elections. There are five vacancies in the council to be filled under the MLAs quota. With the Congress staying away from the polls, the election of four TRS MLC candidates and one from its ally All-India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has now become a mere formality.

Earlier, the Congress had fielded a candidate with the hope of getting support from both the legislators of its ally, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). It had 19 members in the 119-member Assembly but with the recent defection of four MLAs, the tally has come down to 15. Each party requires at least 21 votes to win the seat.

With one of the two TDP MLAs also crossing over to the TRS, the ruling party, which now has a strength of 95, is set to win four seats with the fifth seat going to its ally AIMIM which has seven MLAs. By fielding a fifth candidate without having the required numbers in the House, the TRS had exposed itself to the charge of luring the opposition legislators into its camp by offering inducements.

“This is nothing but murder of democracy. The TRS has thrown all norms and decency to the winds and is hell bent on undermining the democracy,” Telangana Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said.

Despite the opposition party cooperating with the TRS in the unanimous election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker, the ruling party’s attitude had been grossly undemocratic, he alleged.

“We hold the Chief Minister (K Chandrasekhar Rao) responsible for the illegal and unethical practices to engineer defections in opposition parties,” he said.

“The Opposition is required for a healthy and effective democracy but the Chief Minister is trying to finish off the democracy by ensuring that there is no opposition,” the Congress’ floor leader in the Assembly Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said and called for a national debate on the ‘murder of democracy’ in Telangana.

Soon after the assembly results were announced in December last year, four out of six Congress MLCs defected to the TRS. The tenure of the remaining two MLCs — Shabbir Ali and P Sudhakar Reddy — has now come to an end.