Telangana: Four Congress MLCs switch over to TRS

In a setback for Congress in Telangana, four MLCs move to join TRS.

All the four Members of Legislative Council (MLCs) of the Congress in the Telangana Legislative Council switched to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Friday.

In a letter to Legislative Council chairman K Swamy Goud, senior most MLC K Damodar Reddy requested that the Congress Legislative Council party be merged with the TRS. Three other Congress MLCs M Prabhakar Rao, T Santosh Kumar and A Lalitha met Goud and submitted a letter, before announcing they were joining the TRS. The letter stated a merger with TRS was discussed in a meeting of Congress Legislature Party in the Council on December 20.

“In the said meeting, we the undersigned have decided and agreed to merge into Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party in Telangana Legislative Council,” the letter read.

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The MLCs said they have the required strength for merger into TRS Legislative Council Party as per para 4 of Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.

Criticising the merger of four party MLCs into TRS, the Congress leader G Niranjan, in a statement, said: “KCR’s style of functioning of not tolerating the existence of opposition in a democracy shows his dictatorial attitude.”