YSRCP MP Raghu Ramakrishna Raju has questioned the legal sanctity of the show cause notice he was issued on Wednesday by the ruling party.
The MP has been in the news due to repeated stand-offs with his party led by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. The party's national general secretary Vijaya Sai Reddy recently 'elicited his response' on defying the party lines.
Raju on Thursday came out with a letter claiming that it is merely a 'reply but not a response' to the show cause notice. He said that the letterhead of the party on which the show cause notice was issued did not have the legal sanctity, pointing out that it said YSRCP instead of Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP).
“The most important correspondence collateral for physical representation of our party which is our letterhead, treated as a legal document is itself lacking legal sanctity when written as YSR Congress Party instead of our actual and exact party name as Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party as per the Election Commission of India," he wrote in his reply.
The MP also questioned why Vijaya Sai Reddy was designating himself as national general secretary of the party when it is a registered state recognised party.
Going further, Raju asked if the party had a disciplinary committee in place as per statute and said he would answer to the notice only when the committee's existence was established, even while questioning the procedure adopted to issue notice.
"I earnestly and humbly reserve my right to respond on the contents of your communication served as a Show Cause Notice and wish to inform you that I would stand obligated to answer only upon you establishing that there is a Disciplinary Committee and the procedure stipulated to and notified by Election Commission were strictly adhered to in word and spirit,” he stated.
The MP also threatened to take legal action against general secretary Vijaya Sai Reddy for misleading, if he (Vijaya Sai) had not taken permission from the party president to issue the show cause notice.
Raju recently came under fire from the party's high command following his stand against several policies of the YSRCP government. He was accused of making baseless allegations against party MLAs over sand mining and blaming the party for caste based politics.
Earlier this week, the party's general secretary issued a show cause notice while threatening to take action against Raju, referring to several news reports in which he reportedly made certain remarks defying the party lines.