Arekapudi Gandhi appointed as Telangana PAC Chairman

Hyderabad: MLA Arekapudi Gandhi was on Monday appointed as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Telangana legislature.

While Gandhi, who represents Serilingampally in the Assembly, was named as the Chairman, it comprises 12 other members, including BRS members Vemula Prashanth Reddy and Gangula Kamalakar, BJP's Rama Rao Pawar and CPI MLA Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao.

Congress MLAs N Padmavathi Reddy and K Shankaraiah were appointed as the heads of the Committee on Estimates and the Committee on Public Undertakings respectively, according to a bulletin of the state legislature.

Gandhi, who was elected on a BRS ticket, had joined the ruling Congress in July this year.

BRS MLA T Harish Rao slammed the appointment of Gandhi as chairman of the PAC, claiming that it was a "day-light murder of the Constitution" as the latter had joined Congress.

It is a tradition to appoint an opposition member as chairman of PAC and Congress leader K C Venugopal is the head of the Parliament's Pubic Accounts Committee, he pointed out.

Rahul Gandhi talks about ethics by holding a copy of the Constitution and all his speech in Lok Sabha on ethics is hollow, he said.

The Congress leader does not have any moral right to talk about the Constitution henceforth, claimed Rao, a nephew of BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao.

The BRS had earlier sought the disqualification of its 10 MLAs who had switched over to the Congress.

Inputs from PTI