Hyderabad, March 25: Taking strong exception to the Telugu Desam Party’s criticism against the Chief Minister and Assembly Deputy Speaker on the conduct of House proceedings, the Congress Legislature Party Wednesday urged the Opposition party to stop indulging in the “politics of blackmail’’.
The House cannot function in accordance with the dictates of the Opposition leader, it remarked.
Addressing a press conference at the CLP office here, Government Whip S Sailajanath, along with MLAs Pratap Reddy and Venkatrami Reddy, charged Opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu with trying to attack the Speaker’s Chair by resorting to “blackmailing’’.
It was not proper on the part of Naidu to make remarks against Chief Minister K Rosaiah and to call Deputy Speaker N Manohar “inefficient’’. The latter was functioning in accordance with rules and procedure, but the TDP members were resorting to false propaganda to undermine his morale.
In fact, it was the Leader of the Opposition leader who was found wanting by “running away from issues’’ like the bifurcation of the State and Hyderabad as a Free Zone. The CLP members also lashed out at the Opposition leader for his earlier decision to move a no-confidence motion against former Speaker KR Suresh Reddy and “failure’’ to support the candidature of N Kiran Kumar Reddy for the Speaker’s post. In general, the TDP members had hardly raised any public issue for discussion, the Congress maintained, and urged them to at least cooperate to ensure the smooth functioning of the House for the remaining days.
–Agencies