Hyderabad, November 14: A day after acceptance of his resignation from the post of MLA, Telangana Nagara Samithi president Nagam Janardhan Reddy on Sunday accused Legislative Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar of misusing his office and powers.
Addressing a press conference, Nagam alleged that the Speaker has been depriving the MLAs of their right to resign from their posts. He said the Speaker has been intentionally delaying the decision, in clear violation of the democratic norms. Citing prior cases, he said that on several occasions, the resignations were accepted in a just half an hour. However, the Speaker has delayed the decision by several months.
Nagam claimed that it was only after he approached the Andhra Pradesh High Court that Speaker Nadendla Manohar accepted his resignation. He said his intention to approach the court was to expose the fact that the Speaker was suppressing the basic right of MLAs to resign. However, fearing court’s intervention, Nadendla immediately accepted the resignation, he claimed.
The former minister said that the Speaker must take immediate decision on all pending resignations. He said it hardly takes time to verify whether a resignation is genuine or not. “The Speaker needs to verify the signature and check whether the resignation was voluntary or not. But Nadendla Manohar has misused the rules to his advantage to delay the decisions,” he alleged.
Nagam alleged that the Speaker was acting as per the directions of Governor ESL Narasimhan who is implementing the eighth chapter of the Srikrishna Committee. He demanded that the Speaker must accept the resignations of all MLAs who have resigned for the cause of Telangana. He said further delay would amount to violation of democratic norms and misuse of powers that the Speaker enjoys.
Nagam announced that he would not join any party and his political future would be decided by the people of Nagarkurnool constituency. He also challenged TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu to contest the by-elections against him if he thinks that people still support him.
——Agencies