12 Telangana Congress MLAs join ruling TRS, speaker approves merger

Hyderabad, June 06: In a big setback to the Congress in Telangana, 12 of its 18 MLAs joined the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi on Thursday. Speaker P Srinivas Reddy approved the legislators' merger with the ruling party.

The strength of the Congress in the 119 member house is down to 18 after Uttam Kumar Reddy tendered his resignation after being elected to the Lok Sabha. The move came in the wake of Congress MLA Rohith Reddy meeting TRS leader, K T Rama Rao and pledging his loyalty to the ruling party in the state.

With this move, the tally of TRS MLAs rises to 100 while the Congress loses its status as the Opposition party, with only six MLAs.

The AIMIM, led by Hyderabad Lok Sabha member Asaduddin Owaisi, has seven members in the assembly, while the BJP has one.

In March 11 Congress leaders had joined the TRS. Uttam Reddy has accused the Chief Minister of pressurising the Speaker to illegally merge the CLP with the TRS.

This is the most Shameless & Brazen murder of democracy in Telangana - KCR buys a few @INCTelangana MLAs and the defectors apply for merger of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) into TRSLP even while their disqualification petitions are pending with the Speaker," Reddy had tweeted.

"When a writ petition was filed in the Hon'ble High Court, it ruled that there is no urgency in the matter. Yet, KCR is pressurising the Speaker to illegally & immorally merge the CLP into TRSLP. Can KCR not tolerate a Dalit as the CLP leader," he further said.