Hyderabad, July 12 (NSS): Congress senior leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir has issued an open challenge to BRS Working President K Taraka Rama Rao for an open debate on the defection of MLAs, MLCs and MPs
Speaking to the media at Gandhi Bhavan on Friday, Shabbir Ali dismissed KTR’s allegations that Congress initiated the culture of defections, asserting that it was BRS President K. Chandrashekar Rao who both started and legalised this practice. “I’ve already shared a date-wise list of MLAs, MLCs, and MPs who were made to defect to BRS from 2014-2023,” he stated.
Shabbir Ali highlighted that defections began from the day KCR came to power. On June 2, 2014, the day Telangana was formed, two BSP MLAs, Indrakaran Reddy and Koneru Konappa, defected to the BRS. On December 16, 2014, TDP MLA Talasani Srinivas Yadav was appointed minister without resigning from his party. He continued as a TRS Minister while remaining a TDP MLA for 14 months and 24 days. As per the rules, Srinivas Yadav should have resigned within six months and faced bye-elections.
During his first term as Chief Minister (2014-2018), KCR orchestrated the defection of 4 MPs, 25 MLAs, and 18 MLCs, totalling 47 defections. In his second term He said none of these MLAs defected at once, as claimed by KTR. In KCR’s first term, the first defection occurred on 2nd June 2014, and the last one occurred on 15th June 2016, when CPI MLA R Ravinder Kumar and Congress MLA N Bhaskar Rao joined the TRS. Therefore, the defections continued for over two years under KCR’s first term.
Similarly, in KCR’s second term, two Congress MLAs were made to defect on March 2, 2020, the last defection was on April 7, 2021, when two TDP MLAs joined TRS. In this term, too, KCR engineered defections for nearly two years.
Shabbir Ali called on KTR to accept the challenge for an open debate instead of targeting Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on defections. “With statistics and factual reports, I will prove that it was KCR who initiated and strengthened the culture of defections. If proved wrong, I will not only quit my post but will retire from politics. If KTR is proved wrong, he should retire from politics,” he challenged, asking KTR to agree on a mutually acceptable venue and date for the debate.
Shabbir Ali met with the three-member fact-finding committee headed by PJ Kurien, MLA Pargat Singh and MP Rakibul Hussain at Gandhi Bhavan. He explained the party’s performance in the Lok Sabha elections in Nizamabad and Zaheerabad constituencies, claiming an increase in Congress’s vote share in many Assembly segments.
He said that the Congress party won the Zaheerabad Lok Sabha seat and got 11,611 additional votes in the Kamareddy constituency compared to the Assembly elections. Although the Congress party lost the Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat to BJP in the 2024 elections, it secured the highest number of votes in the Nizamabad Urban Assembly constituency, where he was in charge. Similarly, Congress’s vote share increased in five out of seven constituencies, with the highest increases in Nizamabad Urban, followed by Bodhan and Jagtial. Compared to the 2023 Assembly elections, Congress received 36,787 additional votes, securing 96,640 votes in Nizamabad Urban. Similarly, in the Kamareddy Assembly segment
Shabbir Ali emphasised that the Congress party is seriously introspecting the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections and is focused on overcoming weaknesses. (NSS)
