Congress-BRS defections’ issue: History will repeat, says KTR; hypocritical says Shabbir Ali

Hyderabad: The Congress party and BRS are at loggerheads again, this time over the matter of defection of MLAs in Telangana. In a matter of a few days, two BRS MLAs – Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and Dr Sanjay – have switched loyalties towards Congress in the presence of chief minister A Revanth Reddy giving a big shock to BRS.

History will repeat, says KTR

Reacting to these developments on X, BRS working president KT Rama Rao said that his party faced several defections of MLAs in the past (2004-06) when Congress was in power. Telangana responded strongly and eventually, Congress had to bow its head, said KTR predicting that history will repeat.

This post drew mixed reactions from netizens.

While BRS supporters echoed KTR’s sentiments, others pointed out that BRS poached entire TTDP and many Congress MLAs when it was in power between 2014-23.

Meanwhile, Congress hit back strongly countering BRS's fresh allegations against it.

KCR behind 59 defections, says Congress

Government Advisor and former minister Shabbir Ali said that it was BRS and K Chandrashekar Rao, who encouraged and engineered defections in Telangana. Overall, KCR orchestrated the defection of 59 elected representatives, he rued.

Shabbir Ali in fact gave an exact timeline of all defections (MPs, MLAs and MLCs) that took place under the BRS government from 2014-23.

Shabbir Ali’s timeline of defections

During KCR’s first term (2014-18), BRS encouraged the defection of four MPs, 25 MLAs, and 18 MLCs totalling 47 defections, In the second term (2018-23), another 14 MLAs including 12 from Congress and two from TDP defected to BRS, he said.

Bhatti Vikramarkha and Shabbir Ali himself were stripped of the leader of opposition status in the Telangana Assembly and Legislative Council respectively due to BRS poaching of MLAs and MLCs.

BRS citing anti-defection laws and morals is nothing but hypocrisy, Shabbir Ali said.

BRS to knock on SC doors

Meanwhile, BRS has decided to approach the Supreme Court over the disqualification of its MLAs, who switched sides to Congress ignoring people’s mandate.

Already the Pink Party has filed a disqualification appeal against Danam Nagender in High Court. The case is set to come up for hearing on June 27. On the chance that the judgment in Nagender’s case does not go in its favour, BRS has decided to knock on the doors of the apex court.

This time it would seek disqualification of all five MLAs (Danam Nagender, Tellam Venkat Rao, Kadiyam Srihari, Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Dr Sanjay) who left BRS to join Congress.

Take back prime lands allotted to BRS and auction them: Shabbir

On the other hand, Shabbir Ali raised serious concerns about the allocation of prime lands in Hyderabad and districts for BRS party offices.

He stated that the previous KCR government allocated 11 acres of prime land worth Rs 1,100 crore in Kokapet for just Rs 37 crores for the BRS office. Shabbir Ali said that similar prime lands were allotted for BRS party offices in district headquarters.

He demanded the Congress government cancel such allocations and reclaim the lands. He said the Kokapet land given to the BRS party should be auctioned, and its proceeds should be utilised for crop loan waiver and Rythu Bharosa schemes.