Hyderabad, April 02: Five MLAs and several other leaders of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) staged a dharna in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue within the Assembly complex for nearly five hours on Friday protesting against the delay in acceptance of the resignation of Telugu Desam Party MLA Pocharam Srinivas Reddy.
Mr. Reddy who resigned from TDP and the Assembly and joined the TRS a week ago was also present. He claimed that he was pressing for the acceptance of his resignation by Deputy Speaker N. Manohar every day but the latter was dodging the issue.
Incidentally, Mr. Manohar was away in his home constituency of Tenali in Guntur district. The dharna was called off in the afternoon after the Deputy Speaker conveyed to the Legislature Secretary that he would take a decision on the matter when he returns to the city on Sunday.
Speaking to media persons, TRS MLAs — Eatala Rajender, T. Harish Rao, K.T. Rama Rao, K. Eashwar and G. Arvind Reddy — alleged that the Congress colluded with TDP and keeping Mr. Reddy’s resignation pending. The parties were afraid to face by-elections that would follow if the resignation was accepted.
They drew parallel between Mr. Reddy’s case and the acceptance of resignation by rebel TRS MLAs in the last Assembly when K.R. Suresh Reddy was the Speaker. Mr. Suresh Reddy had cleared the resignation by the MLAs even when a case against them was reserved for judgment under anti-defection law.
Meanwhile, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) legislators — E. Dayakar Rao, L. Ramana and P. Mahender Reddy — found fault with the TRS protest. If at all the Deputy Speaker has to act, he was required to act upon their petition to disqualify Mr. Srinivas Reddy and two other party MLAs — Y. Balanagi Reddy and N. Prasanna Kumar Reddy — for voting against the party candidates in Council polls.
Speaking to the media, they said the TRS has no moral right to press for acceptance of Mr. Srinivas Reddy’s resignation .
–Agencies