The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Thursday issued a fresh order cancelling the Indian citizenship of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh.
Fresh orders were issued after hearing Ramesh, who had challenged an earlier order from 2017, cancelling his citizenship.
Ramesh's citizenship was revoked on the grounds that he held citizenship of Germany and didn't fulfil the norms while obtaining Indian citizenship in 2009.
Ramesh, re-elected to Telangana Assembly from the Vemulawada constituency last year, said he would move the Telangana High Court again.
Ramesh argued that the MHA didn't take the High Court orders into consideration while issuing fresh orders, and added that he was confident of getting justice.
In July, the HC had set aside the MHA order and directed it to hear Ramesh's submissions afresh. It also began hearing the argument put forth by complainant Adi Srinivas, the Congress leader defeated by Ramesh in the 2009 elections.
Srinivas claimed that Ramesh had submitted fake documents, and violated the Representation of People’s Act, which states that any person who is not an Indian citizen, is not eligible to contest or vote in any election.
Under the Act, a person has to reside in India for 365 days (one year) to be eligible for citizenship. While Ramesh argued that he has done so, Srinivas claimed that it was not a 'continuous stay'. However, Ramesh has said that the word ‘continuous stay’ was added to the law after 2009, by which time he had already been granted citizenship.
The ruling party legislator has maintained that he had surrendered his Indian passport and taken up German citizenship in 1993. But, in 2009, he applied for the Indian citizenship and was granted the same.
Ramesh's citizenship issue is pending since 2009 when he was elected as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate. He later joined the TRS and was re-elected in the by-election in 2010. He was elected to the Assembly again in 2014 and 2018.
IANS inputs