Except KCR & family, no one will be left in BRS: Shabbir Ali

Hyderabad: Congress senior leader and advisor to the Telangana Government (SC, ST, BC & Minorities) Mohammed Ali Shabbir has launched a scathing attack on the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) for its stance on political defections. Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan here on Monday, Shabbir Ali said that KCR had started the culture of defection from the day he came to power in 2014 and continued it till he lost the 2023 Assembly elections.

Citing examples, he said that on June 2, 2014, the day Telangana was officially formed, two BSP MLAs, Indrakaran Reddy and Koneru Konappa, defected to the BRS. On December 16, 2014, Talasani Srinivas Yadav, a TDP MLA, was appointed minister. As per the rules, Srinvas Yadav should have resigned within six months and faced bye-elections, but he continued in his position without doing so. KCR subsequently facilitated the defection of 11 TDP MLAs, culminating in the official merger of TDP with BRS on March 11, 2016.

Srinivas Yadav remained a TDP MLA and a TRS Minister for 14 months and 24 days, which Shabbir Ali highlighted as a significant breach of democratic principles. He claimed that more than 30 out of 39 BRS MLAs are ready to switch to Congress, predicting a significant weakening of BRS, which might lose its status as the main opposition party in the coming days. He suggested that, except for KCR’s family members, no one would remain in the BRS.