Kommineni Srinivasa Rao

The AP legislative assembly is witness to a strange, unprecedented situation. The ruling TDP is forced to conduct winter session of the Assembly without the Opposition!

It is common knowledge as to why the YSRCP has decided to boycott the assembly session. It has decided to boycott the session as Chandrababu is shamelessly engineering defections and Speaker Kodela Sivaprasad is fully backing him by choosing not to act on these defections. The boycott was unprecedented. It was also entirely unexpected for the ruling TDP.

The TDP has lost its moral high ground at the national level. When NTR had launched the TDP, he had insisted that those wishing to join the TDP should first resign their posts. He was very categorical when he said that he would not promote unethical defections. From that moral high ground, the TDP has fallen down to the present day low when it is ''buying'' MLAs as one would buy cattle in the market. This has surely come as a shock to many TDP sympathisers, who backed the party from its early days.

Interestingly, Chandrababu Naidu himself is a defector. While in the Congress, he had dared NTR for a straight electoral fight. Though that did not happen, he had to bite the dust in the 1983 elections. Later, he sneaked into the TDP and went on to take reins of the party.

But, people like Yanamala and Kodela have never been in the Congress. They owe their political life to the TDP. Yet, they too are stooping to unimaginably low levels in encouraging defections. The way Kodela is justifying his actions is shocking to say the least. He says the matter is sub-judice as the YSRCP has approached the court and hence he cannot take any decision on the defections. But, why did YSRCP go to the court in the first place? Wasn't it because of his inaction? Why did Kodela not act in time on the complaints against the defections? Did he not see Chandrababu Naidu wrapping the yellow stole around the defectors'' shoulders? Also, how could four defectors become ministers in Chandrababu Naidu’s cabinet? Both Chandrababu and Kodela do not have any answer to these questions. They know what they did was wrong.

But, let it be said that they cannot get away by mouthing utter falsehoods and inane arguments on the issue. Nor can they absolve themselves of the crime of engineering defections. The conscientious Telugu people will never forgive this conspiracy to turn Andhra Pradesh into a defectors' den.