15 Congress, TDP MLAs have been disqualified for defying the whip, issued by their respective parties during voting, on the no confidence motion in March this year.

Speaker Nadendla Manohar’s action has high political significance, since it will neither trigger the by -elections, nor bring down the Government. YSRCP cites this case of conspiracy that has cooked up between the Congress and the TDP. The disqualified MLAs made comments to show their understanding of the political drama being played.

PeddiReddy Ramachandra Reddy said that the fear of losing deposits by both the Congress and TDP candidates had made the Government wait for six months before taking a decision to disqualify the candidates. His opinion was more or less echoed by Perni Nani. Praveen Kumar Reddy said, he was axed because he opposed TDP, giving support to the Government.

Maddala Rajesh expressed that the Congress had turned the speaker too, into a caged parrot. They defied the whip in March, and asked that the Assembly should be dissolved and elections conducted. But the Government waited all these days and took action now. He said that he was not sorry and that he was proud to have stood by the people.

MV Mysoora Reddy, CGC member of YSRC party said that the Govt was confident that there would be no by-elections in which both the Congress and TDP would have received a drubbing from the people, and hence has taken this step now. It is match fixing between the Congress and TDP. He also predicted that Chandra Babu Naidu might now come forward to table a no-confidence motion, knowing very well that the Government will not collapse.

The speaker kept his judgment pending against three MLAs , Koppula Hariswar Reddy ( Parigi ), Venugoplachari ( Muthol ) , Chinnam Rama Kotaiah ( Nujvid ) saying that their investigation is still in process.

The speaker condemned the allegation that there was an inordinate delay in announcing his judgment. He said that the speaker is bound to dispense natural justice according to the powers bestowed on him by the constitution. There were cases in the past when the MLAs, who submitted their resignations, took them back. Even now some of the MLAs have asked for some more time to present their cases.

The disqualification of the 15 MLAs is being treated as a double bounty by the Congress .Firstly, the Government has no fears of being voted out of power if a no confidence motion is tabled by the opposition.

After these disqualifications the Congress has strength of 146 members against the earlier 155. But the Government is still confident of surviving the no confidence motion, because the effective strength of the House has come down to 279, and the half-way mark is 140. The combined strength of the opposition is 132.

---Sakshipost