The YSRCP has decided to boycott the monsoon session the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly which commences on Thursday, to protest the defection of 22 party MLAs who jumped to the ruling-TDP in the state.
Legislators from the opposition party wrote an open letter to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday and said that they would only attend the session, if the Speaker disqualified the defectors.
The YSRCP said that a temple of democracy had become a 'haunted house', even as Speaker Kodela Siva Prasad Rao held a review meet with DGP RP Thakur ahead of the session.
"At the behest of the TDP, the defected MLAs are attacking the YSRC by sitting in treasury benches. Can anyone call it as Legislative Assembly. Was it not an assault on democracy?” the YSRCP MLAs were quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, taking a dig at the opposition party's decision, CM Naidu asked the YSRCP MLAs why they continued to draw their salaries, if they were not attending the session.
“When they do not even attend Assembly sessions, why are they continuing as MLAs and drawing salaries? Even though they have forgotten their responsibilities as MLAs, they do not forget to take their salary,” Naidu told reporters.
The YSRCP has already avoided attending two Assembly sessions in October last year and March this year, and if the streak continues, this would be the third session.
The YSRCP is especially irked at four MLAs, who were made ministers after they defected to the ruling TDP, namely, Adinarayana Reddy, RV Sujay Krishna Ranga Rao, N Amarnath Reddy and Bhuma Akhila Priya.
YSRCP has been demanding that the legislators be disqualified under Schedule 10 of the Constitution - also known as the anti-defection law. The party has approached the Assembly Speaker and the President of India demanding that they take cognizance of the situation.
On October 26 last year, Jaganmohan Reddy wrote to the President of India seeking his intervention into the matter of 'encouraged' defections from his party to the ruling TDP.
In the letter, Jagan accused Naidu of ‘unethical and unconstitutional practice of masterminding defections.’