Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Suryapet MLA G Jagadish Reddy has been suspended from the house for the rest of the Telangana special Assembly session for allegedly insulting and intimidating Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar on Thursday, March 13.
BRS MLAs held a sit-in protest at Dr BR Ambedkar’s statue on the Necklace Road after the suspension was ordered by the speaker. BRS has called for state-wide protests on Friday, March 14, by burning the effigies of the state government in the headquarters of all the Assembly constituencies against the suspension of Jagadish Reddy.
Shortly after the BRS MLAs protested, KTR and others were detained by the police and shifted to various police stations.
Addressing media persons before the arrests, Jagadish Reddy said that his suspension was a conspiracy of the ruling party to silence him, after he was asked by BRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao to speak on the Governor’s address representing the BRS.
“It was a discussion between us and the Congress government, where the Speaker was acting as the referee. Nobody interrupted when two Congress members spoke for an hour and twenty minutes. I was only raising the issues like the Rabi crops drying and how the people of the state have been deceived. I only informed the speaker that the house didn’t just belong to the Congress, and repeatedly told the Speaker to control the members of the ruling party who were interrupting my speech,” Reddy said.
He said that he has not spoken anything against the Speaker, and was only trying to raise the failures of the Congress government.
“If it is the issue of Dalits, I don’t know if this happened in any Assembly constituency of a municipality. In the Suryapet municipality, we gave the seat of municipal chairman which was designated for a woman from the general category, to a Dalit woman. This very Congress had tried to overthrow her after four years, but we all stood behind her and ensured that she completed her five-year term,” he said.
Making it clear that the Congress government’s attempts to suppress his voice by suspending him won’t stand in the people’s court, Jagadish Reddy said that BRS will continue to expose the state government’s failures, and will also take legal recourse against his suspension.
Speaking with media, BRS working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) said that the Speaker adjourning the Assembly for five hours, and then suspending Jagadish Reddy was part of the Congress government’s conspiracy to silence the voices that were questioning.
KTR said that the suspension showed the government’s unilateral stand, arrogance and autocratic ways.
“We strongly feel that the speaker was pressurized from above to order the suspension. When we went to the speaker’s chamber and asked him what was wrong in Jagadish Reddy’s utterances, he had no answer. We even asked the Speaker to show what Jagadish Reddy had uttered on a video screen to the members and let the floor leaders of all the parties express their opinions on the mood of the house. But only a few Congress MLAs and ministers were allowed to speak as if they represented the mood of the house, before suspending Jagadish Reddy,” KTR said.
KTR said that the Speaker could have given a chance to Jagadish Reddy to withdraw his statements if he was offended by something that Jagadish Reddy had said, or to resolve the issue in the Speaker’s chambers by holding a meeting there, but the decision to suspend him was taken unilaterally.
“Even a person convicted of murder is given a last chance to speak, but Jagadish Reddy wasn’t allowed to explain,” KTR said, reiterating that Reddy had not uttered a single unparliamentary word on the floor of the house.
KTR said that the people of Telangana have understood the Congress government’s 15-month rule of “20 percent commissions and bags of money being sent to Delhi,” and that the people will punish the Congress in the future for sure.
“People believe that Indiramma Rajyam means welfare schemes. But the emergency era is being reinforced in the state in the name of Praja Palana, which is an undemocratic rule,” KTR alleged.
Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao alleged that the suspension of Jagadish Reddy happened under the direction of chief minister A Revanth Reddy, and the action of legislative affairs minister D Sridhar Babu.
He said that despite the BRS MLAs not using any unparliamentary language they approached D Sridhar Babu and the Speaker intending to end the logjam in the interests of the people. However, he was suspended.
“Jagadish Reddy was not even given a chance to explain. It was all pre-planned before the session began. This is a black day in the history of Assembly,” he said.
“Is this protecting the constitution,” Harish Rao asked Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, also questioning AICC in-charge of Telangana Meenakshi Natarajan, if this was what she meant, when she said that people needed to be allowed to democratically hold protests.
Harish Rao claimed that the protesting BRS MLAs were not allowed to enter and offer their tributes to Dr BR Ambedkar, as the gates for entering the statue’s premises were locked.
“The state government has even chained Dr BR Ambedkar. Has there been even one instance in the last 15 months when the chief minister has paid homage to Ambedkar at the 125-ft tall statue in the last 15 months,” he questioned.
This post was last modified on March 13, 2025 6:44 pm