Nine members of the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) were suspended for one day from the Andhra Pradesh Assembly for stalling the proceedings of the House on Tuesday.
The Speaker, Tammineni Seetaram, suspended the TDP legislators after the Minister for Finance and Legislative Affairs Buggana Rajendranath moved a resolution to this effect on the last day of the house. CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy also urged the Speaker to order the suspension of the MLAs as they were running the house out of order.
The suspended members are K Atchennaidu, Nimmala Rama Naidu, Bendalam Ashok, Gadde Rammohan, Yeluri Sambasiva Rao, Maddali Giridhar Rao, Anagani Satya Prasad, Bala Veeranjaneya Swamy and Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu.
The marshals lifted the nine MLAs physically from the house on the direction of the Speaker.
Earlier in July too Deputy Speaker Kona Raghupathi suspended three TDP MLAs – K Atchannaidu, Gorantla Butchaiah Chowdary and Nimmala Rama Naidu – for the specific session on similar charges.
On Tuesday, chaos broke out as the discussion over the state capital was underway, after the CM announced that his government saw the possibility of constructing three capitals. The opposition legislators then started shouting slogans and interrupting Jagan’s speech.
The MLAs were also protesting against the allegations made by Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath, who said that the previous TDP government had turned Amaravati into a real estate development business. He alleged that many leaders of the then ruling party benefitted from it through insider trading by buying prime lands in and around Amaravati at throwaway prices before the location of the new state capital was announced.
The Minister further claimed that investigations carried out after the YSRCP came to power revealed that over 4,000 acres of land were bought by TDP leaders in ‘benami’. He said Heritage Foods, a family firm of TDP President and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, was also a beneficiary.