The Congress in Telangana urged the Governor on Saturday to disqualify nine legislators who defected to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). They have also asked that President’s Rule be imposed in Telangana.
A delegation of Congress leaders, led by party's central leader and former Union Minister M Veerappa Moily, called on Governor ESL Narasimhan at the Raj Bhavan and submitted a memorandum, urging the Governor to send a copy of their representation to the President to impose President’s Rule in Telangana by invoking Article 356 of the Constitution of India. Article 356 of the Constitution confers a power upon the President to be exercised only where he is satisfied that a situation has arisen where the government of a state cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
The Congress has also urged the Governor to direct the Assembly Speaker to disqualify those MLAs who have announced that they were leaving the Congress. The party has also stated that it will be taking up the issue of defections at the national level and complain to the Lokpal.
Earlier, Moily met senior party leaders and discussed the situation created by the defection of nine MLAs this month. This has reduced Congress party's strength in 119-member Telangana Assembly from 19 to 10.
Moily told reporters that the TRS was engineering defections in the Congress and warned that Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao would have to 'pay a price for this'.
Terming defections a "blood cancer", he said party President Rahul Gandhi was concerned about it. Exuding confidence that Congress would come to power at the Centre, the former Law Minister said it would bring amendments to Anti-Defection Law to provide more teeth to the courts to deal with the problem. Khuntia said the MLAs who were elected on the Congress symbol should resign from the Assembly.
Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that the TRS was indulging horse trading by using the "ill-gotten" money. He claimed that the statements of all defected MLAs were similar and typed in the Chief Minister's office.
(With IANS inputs)