The Congress Legislature Party will submit a petition seeking the disqualification of nine party MLAs and an associate member who voted in favour of the no confidence motion tabled by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti in a day or two.
Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, AP Congress Committee president Botcha Satyanarayana and Government Chief Whip Gandra Venkataramana Reddy held discussions on the issue in the Legislative Assembly on Friday and took a decision to submit the disqualification notice to Speaker Nadendla Manohar.
The party has already obtained legal opinion on the issue.
The party had requested the Speaker to initiate action invoking provisions under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution against the party MLAs who defied the whip in voting against the government.
The Congress would treat the case of associate member K. Srisailam Goud, who called on YSR Congress president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy at Chanchalguda prison on Friday morning, under the provision of voluntarily giving up his membership.
“Though Mr. Goud is an independent MLA, we can seek action against him since he proclaimed his affiliation with the ruling party more than once,” an advocate privy to the matter said.
There is, however, uncertainty on whether the MLAs will be disqualified with immediate effect or whether they will be given an opportunity to submit their version in line with “principles of natural justice”.
The uncertainty stems from the fact that the Speaker took time to conduct hearings with individual MLAs of TRS in an earlier instance where they had defied the party whip. “The Speaker can summarily disqualify the nine MLAs as they had defied the party Whip. The associate member, however, is entitled to explain his stand,” the advocate said.
