© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
CONTROVERSIAL BJP MLA T Raja Singh has started his new stint in the Assembly with a row. Elected for the third time from Goshamahal seat, Raja Singh has said he won’t be taking oath on Saturday, in protest against AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi being appointed as the Protem Speaker to conduct the proceedings.
“I am not going to take the oath if Akbaruddin is sitting in the Speaker’s chair. Akbar is the product of Qasim Razvi, the head of the Nizam’s Razakar army, which massacred Telangana people,’’ Raja Singh told The Indian Express on Friday evening.
The seven other BJP MLAs elected this time, although did not raise any objection immediately after Singh, followed suit the next morning as they said they will not be taking the oath.
Governor Tamilisai Soundararjan picked Akbaruddin as the Protem Speaker for being the senior-most legislator in the House, having won for the sixth time from Chandrayangutta.
Raja Singh’s protest is anyway only symbolic as Akbaruddin is to hold the post only for Saturday, with the Speaker to be picked after that. A Protem Speaker is usually appointed to administer the oath of office to newly elected MLAs in the first sitting of the Assembly after an election, and presides over the voting and election of the new Speaker.
The new Speaker is likely to be Gaddam Prasad Kumar, whom the ruling Telangana Congress has nominated.
The BJP’s tally in the Telangana Assembly has gone up from 1 in 2018 (Raja Singh was the sole winner at the time), to 8, with its vote share doubling from 6.90% to 14%.
Raja Singh, 45, had spent 76 days in prison in 2022 after the Telangana Police invoked the Preventive Detention Act against him for repeated offences, particularly for allegedly stoking communal tensions in the city with a controversial video released in August 2022. The police cited 104 criminal cases against him, including 18 communal cases.
In November 2022, the high court revoked his preventive detention.
In January this year, the police issued a fresh show-cause notice to Raja Singh over a speech he made in Mumbai, calling it a violation of the conditions set by the court in its order freeing him.
The BJP gave him a ticket from Goshamahal after reinstating him more than a year after it suspended him in August 2022 over alleged remarks against the Prophet. He was in the party’s first list of 52 candidates.
The BJP’s decision came after Raja Singh said he would contest as an Independent if the party did not lift his suspension and give him a ticket.
