JAGAN STARTS CAMPAIGN AGAINST MLAS’ DEFECTION

The induction of four YSR Congress party MLAs into the cabinet of Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has snowballed into a major political controversy.

On Friday, the YSR Congress organised dharnas in all assembly constituencies in the state to draw attention to the unethical practice of Naidu giving cabinet berth to the defected MLAs. At the same time, the party took the battle to New Delhi to expose Naidu’s alleged blatant violation of the anti-defection law.

YSR Congress party president YS Jaganmohan Reddy led a delegation to New Delhi to submit a memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday, seeking the disqualification of four of his party MLAs – Sujaya Krishna Ranga Rao, N Amarnath Reddy, Bhuma Akhila Priya and C Adinarayana Reddy – who joined the Naidu cabinet.

Jagan brought to the President’s notice that even Governor ESL Narasimhan, who was expected to safeguard the Constitution, had mechanically accepted the advice of the chief minister and administered oath of office to the defected MLAs. “Naidu, a Machiavellian politician with no scruples, openly indulged in the unconstitutional practice of engineering defections from the YSR Congress and giving cabinet berths to defectors without making them resign from their assembly membership,” he alleged.

Jagan said that 21 MLAs of his party had defected to the ruling TDP but they continued to remain the YSRC MLAs as per the assembly records since they had not resigned from the party.