CM bats for tough anti-defection law

Hyderabad: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has made a strong plea for tough anti-defection law so that the political game of trying to pull down an elected government by the Opposition parties, which has now become a new trend, can come to an end.

In a media interaction in New Delhi on Thursday, Revanth Reddy alleged that it is the BRS that should take the blame for inciting the trouble and the ugly scenes that were witnessed in Hyderabad on Thursday. He demanded BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao to apologise for the “instigating” remarks made by his party MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy on Wednesday when he showed saree and bangles and said that he would go to the house of Gandhi and give them to him. The CM also said that it was the BRS chief and their top leaders who had said that they would bring down the Congress government in three months. When they challenged the government, the party had decided to open its doors to anyone who wanted to join the party and some MLAs had crossed over to the ruling party, he said.

If there was no scope for defections, then the Congress which got 65 MLAs on its own would not have admitted anyone from outside, he added.

Revanth Reddy refused to react on the High Court direction to the secretary of the Assembly to place all documents seeking disqualification of the defected MLAs before the Speaker within four weeks.

On the issue of making Gandhi as the PAC chairman, the Chief Minister said Gandhi was a BRS MLA as per records. Moreover, out of 10 PAC members, the BRS has six members, and the Congress has only four. He said even on this issue, the BRS has no right to criticize the Congress because when in power they had ignored giving PAC chairman’s post to the main opposition Congress and gave it to the AIMIM.