A bugbear for TRS since joining BJP, Telangana MLA Rajender suspended from Assembly again

Rajender accused Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao of targeting him. “The CM does not want to see me in the Assembly, that is why they are coming up with new ideas to suspend me,’’ Rajender said Tuesday.

He was suspended for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy. Last week Rajender criticised the speaker for not inviting the Opposition BJP for the Business Advisory Committee meeting in the Assembly, but the latter explained that a party with just three members need not be invited.

However, Rajender and fellow BJP MLA M Raghunandan Rao criticised the government for breaking with the tradition of inviting a party even if it has just one MLA.

As Rajender, who abstained from the Assembly for the past two days, went there on Tuesday, the government demanded an apology from him for criticising the speaker. He was suspended for the rest of the session after he refused to apologise.

When Rajender sat on a strike, he was forcibly whisked away by police and taken to his house at Shamirpet.

Rajender was dropped as health minister from the KCR cabinet on May 1 last year, after he developed some difference of opinion with the chief minister and the government accused him of land-grabbing.

The sixth-term MLA claimed innocence and resigned from the TRS and as a legislator on June 4. He joined the BJP on June 14.

Rajender beat TRS candidate and student wing leader Gellu Srinivas Yadav in the ensuing bypoll, dealing a body blow to the prestige of the KCR government.

Since then, Rajender has been a bugbear for TRS leaders. Although a land-grab inquiry was initiated against his Jamuna Hatcheries, no further action has been taken either by police or the district administration.