Senior Congress leader and MLC Md. Ali Shabbir has been made the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council triggering protests from fellow colleagues.
Telangana PCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy in a letter to the Telangana Legislative Council Chairman K. Swamy Goud on Tuesday said that Mr. Shabbir, who is the Deputy Leader of CLP in the Upper House be appointed as the LOP till elections are held for filling up the vacancies. Mr. Shabbir’s elevation was necessitated following the retirement of Leader of Opposition D. Srinivas on March 29.
The development did not go down well with other party legislators as they termed the appointment unilateral and unfortunate. Although the Congress originally had 17 MLCs in the Upper House, the strength came down to eight after nine party legislators defected to the TRS last year. Of the eight, two members – Mr. Srinvas and Peer Shabbir Ali retired on March 29.
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Sources said five MLCs – Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy, M. Ranga Reddy, M. S. Prabhakar Rao, T. Santosh Kumar and Farooq Hussain wrote a letter to the party president Sonia Gandhi and the AICC general secretary incharge for Telangana Digvijay Singh on March 20 urging that election of the LOP should be deferred as the notification for filling up vacant seats from the MLA quota were not announced.
A Congress MLC, who did not wish to be identified said there was no need for the TPCC chief to hurry up and send a letter to the Chairman. “Mr. Digvijay Singh is coming to Hyderabad and we plan to raise the issue before him,” the leader remarked. Mr. Singh will be visiting Gandhi Bhavan on Wednesday to interact with the party leaders. In the meantime, Mr. Shabbir thanked the high command for reposing faith in him and making him the LOP.
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