Hyderabad: The seven elected MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday, December 9, in a letter to the Governor alleged that norms were being flouted wilfully by the newly elected government in the Telangana Assembly, referring to AIMIM’s Akbaruddin Owaisi being appointed protem speaker to the Assembly.
They alleged that the newly elected government was attempting to pander to certain sections of the people in pursuit of appeasement politics.
The elected BJP MLAs boycotted the first session of the Third Legislative Assembly Session and the oath-taking with AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi presiding the proceedings as protem speaker alleging blatant violation of procedures, protocols and precedents.
“As per the constitution, Article 188, a seniormost member in terms of number of years in the Assembly be nominated as the Protem Speaker. Although, there are many members who are senior to Sri Akbaruddin Owaisi, the Government chose to appoint him as the Protem Speaker, which is a clear violation of the set norms,” alleged the elected BJP MLAs in their letter.
The MLAs further requested the Governor to set aside the nomination of Akbaruddin Owaisi as protem speaker as it “constitutes a violation of norms”. They further demanded instructions appointment of the seniormost member, irrespective of affiliation to any political party.
The BJP MLAs also requested the Governor to withhold the swearing-in of MLAs with Akbaruddin Owaisi as protem speaker, until a new full-time speaker for the newly constituted assembly is nominated. “The TS-BJP, otherwise, will be compelled to refrain from taking oath in front of a person who is appointed against the norms,” said the MLAs.
The letter was signed by B Payal Shanker MLA Elect-Adilabad, K. Venkata Ramana Reddy MLA Elect-Kamareddy, Dhanpal Suryanarayana Gupta MLA Elect-Nizamabad Urban, Palvai Harish Babu MLA Elect-Sirpur, Rama Rao Patel MLA Elect-Mudhole, Paidi Rakesh Reddy MLA Elect-Armoor and Aleti Maheshwar Reddy MLA Elect-Nirmal.
However, Raja Singh, who had initially demanded the removal of Akbaruddin Owaisi took no part in the party’s activities today. It should be noted that his name was conspicuously absent from the letter addressed to the Governor. Additionally, he was absent from the group of MLAs who chose to boycott the Assembly session and instead visited Bhagyalaxmi temple in Charminar today.
