Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader and former Minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Monday alleged that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao have no respect for Constitution and both have committed the offence of encouraging defections in Opposition parties. “While Modi has engineered defections in several States like Goa, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra to topple elected governments, CM KCR gained strength in Telangana by encouraging defections since 2014,” Shabbir Ali said in a media statement here on Monday.
The senior Congress leader pointed out that KCR made four MPs, 25 MLAs and 18 MLCs of Opposition Congress, TDP and BSP defect to TRS during the first two years of power since June 2014. He used the same tactic to weaken the Opposition Congress by engineering defection of 12 MLAs in the second term. “Since KCR hates Dalits, he never wanted an SC leader (Bhatti Vikramarka) to become Leader of Opposition. Therefore, he made 12 Congress MLAs defect and join TRS,” he added.
Shabbir Ali said then Assembly Speaker Madhusudana Chary and Council Chairman Swamy Goud did not act on complaints for disqualification of rebel MLAs and MLCs. “KCR ridiculed democracy and the Constitution to the extent that he inducted Talasani Srinivas Yadav as a minister in his cabinet without making him resign as TDP MLA. As per rules, Srinivas Yadav should have got re-elected on a TRS ticket within six months. However, at the instance of KCR, the then Speaker did not take any action even after one year. Then Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan too violated the Constitution by allowing Talasani to continue as minister after six months. Later, KCR made all 15 TDP MLAs defect to TRS,” he said, adding that both BJP and TRS were equal partners in committing the offence of violating the Constitution. “Strangely, KCR is now targeting Modi for the offences which he has committed several times”.
He said KCR openly bribed the Congress and TDP MLAs by giving them a berth in his cabinet or offering them other posts and money. “KCR was able to engineer defections at such a large scale as he enjoyed the blessings of Modi. KCR made 12 Congress MLAs defect to TRS in three months.
KCR carried out ‘Operation Aakarshan’ from March 2 to June 6 in 2019 with Congress MLAs joining the TRS one after the other. Later, their defection was endorsed as a ‘merger’ to mislead the democratic institutions, including the courts. An impression was given as if all 12 MLAs met on June 6 to seek their merger with TRS. As per the provisions of Anti-Defection Law under the X Schedule, Shabbir Ali said an MLA automatically gets disqualified if he/she ‘Voluntarily gives up the membership of his/her political party. The moment defected MLAs announced their intention to join the TRS, they were automatically disqualified. But KCR managed these illegal defections under the protection provided by PM Modi, he alleged. Shabbir Ali alleged that KCR had suppressed all voices of dissent and even stopped the broadcast of two Telugu news channels for a few months.
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