In an extraordinary turn of events in the Telangana Assembly on Thursday, Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary suspended 10 legislators of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for a week, following the adamant attitude by TDP member A. Revanth Reddy and the treasury benches over what is not such a significant issue.
The allegation made by Mr. Reddy in the House on Wednesday that TRS MP from Nizamabad, K. Kavitha, daughter of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, had enrolled herself in the household survey at two places spilled over to Thursday and did not allow any business for nearly three hours after Question Hour. The ruling party was firm on not allowing Mr. Reddy to speak on the budget till he apologised, after placing necessary documents before the Chair disproving his allegation.
Revanth refuses to relent However, Mr. Reddy stuck to his guns and refused to relent. Any chance of reconciliation between the two sides was sealed after the Chief Minister intervened and insisted that the TDP member must apologise for his mistake at any cost or else they would not relent.
“Slip of tongue by members is common during their speeches made in various emotional stages, but they correct themselves on majority opinion. Even Indira Gandhi had apologised in Parliament sometimes. The attitude that one can speak anything and get away with it is wrong. Mr. Reddy had also misled the House on SRLDC statistics and his objectionable remarks against a fellow MLA asking him to prostrate at his leader’s feet and terming the budget as ‘KCR family budget’ were also extreme,” Mr. Rao said.
TD members rush into well Mr. Revanth Reddy ignored the Chief Minister’s remarks. The Speaker then asked TRS member E. Ravinder Reddy (TRS) to speak on the budget. Irked by this, the TDP members rushed into the well raising slogans even as the TRS member continued his speech. Legislative Affairs Minister T. Harish Rao then moved a resolution amid the noise and the Speaker announced suspension of the TDP members.
The suspended members are E. Dayakar Rao, A. Revanth Reddy, T. Prakash Goud, G. Sayanna, M. Kishan Reddy, S. Venkata Veeraiah, Rajender Reddy, K.P. Vivekanand, A. Gandhi and M. Gopinath.
Later, K. Jana Reddy (Congress) and N.V.S.S. Prabhakar (BJP) requested the government to reconsider the suspension or limit it to a day, but in vain. They said it would not set a good precedent.
