Hyderabad: Telangana Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad on Wednesday, March 11, dismissed the disqualification petitions against Khairatbad MLA Danam Nagender and Station Ghanpur MLA Kadiyam Srihari.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) had filed a petition against 10 MLAs, including these two, stating that they had won the 2023 Assembly elections on BRS tickets and later switched to the Congress. However, during an inquiry conducted by the speaker, both MLAs stated that they remain members of the BRS and denied switching over to the ruling party.
Srihari and Nagender denied receiving a whip from the BRS. The Khairataba MLA said he was working alongside Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy for the betterment of Hyderabad. After hearing their statements, Prasad recognised them as BRS MLAs and did not disqualify them.
The Speaker’s decision comes a day before the case is to be heard by the Supreme Court.
KTR calls verdict attack on democracy
Reacting to the verdict, BRS Working President KT Ram Rao called it an attack on democracy. In a statement, KTR said that giving a clean chit to leaders who won on one party’s ticket but later switched loyalties to another party amounted to insulting the people’s mandate.
In a post on X, the former Telangana minister said, “This decision taken by the Speaker to encourage party defections is a dark day in democratic history. This is not just a judgment… It’s an example of using constitutional systems favorably for those in power.”
“If elected positions won with people’s votes are changed for personal gains, and the Speaker stamps approval for it — where do democratic values stand?” he asked.
Background of the case
The issue began in March 2024, when Nagender joined the Congress followed by nine other MLAs. This led to the Congress increasing its strength in the Assembly to 74 seats and the BRS was reduced to 29 seats.
Soon after the defection, the BRS filed a petition urging the speaker to disqualify the defected MLAs. However, the matter remained pending for months, forcing the party to approach the Telangana High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court.
In July 2025, the apex court directed the speaker to decide the petitions within a stipulated time frame and also expressed displeasure over the delay, following which the Assembly Secretariat resumed hearings.
Between December 2025 and February 2026, the Speaker dismissed petitions against eight MLAs, citing a lack of evidence.
The final hearings were held in the cases of Danam Nagender and Station Ghanpur MLA Kadiyam Srihari, which drew attention as one had contested the Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket from Secunderabad Parliamentary constituency. While Srihari had actively campaigned for his daughter, who contested as a Congress candidate from Warangal Lok Sabha constituency in 2024.
Though the speaker disposed of all the petitions citing lack of evidence, the decision in the last two cases drew criticism as both leaders had publicly associated with the ruling party.
Prasad delivered the verdict within the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court, however the verdict and the reasons cited have invited criticism that the process adhered to the timeline without resolving the core issue of whether the defections violated the law.
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