Hyderabad: The Telangana Congress unit is aiming to get a total of 26 Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLAs to defect before the upcoming Budget session in order avoid by-elections. So far 10 legislators have shifted sides, and another 17 are needed for the anti-defection law to come into place. The law mandates that unless two-thirds of the legislature from a party defects, by-elections have to be held as legislators will have to resign after switching sides.
According to a senior Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) leader from Hyderabad, BRS MLAs like Maganti Gopinath, ex-minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav and Amberpet MLA Kaleru Venkatesh are next in line to defect. The last BRS MLA who went to the Congress was Serilingampally MLA Arekapudi Gandhi.
Along with Gandhi, Serilingampally Corporator Nagender Yadav, Miyapur Corporator Uppalapati Srikanth, Chandanagar Corporator Manjula Raghunath Reddy, and Hydernagar Corporator Narne Srinivas also joined the Congress.
Apart from getting the BRS MLAs to skirt the anti-defection law, the Congress in Telangana will also need BRS MLAs from the Greater Hyderabad region to strengthen itself in the city limits, as it failed to win even one out of the 24 seats in the GHMC area during the 2023 Assembly elections in December. The grand old party came to power by winning 64 out of 119 seats, while the BRS got 39. The BJP won 8 segments across the state and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) retained its 7 seats in the Old City.
Since then, 10 BRS MLAs have defected to the Congress. The defections began during the run up to the Lok Sabha elections, and Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender was one of the first ones to formally quit. However, it may be noted that Nagender was originally a long-time Congress leader who defected to the BRS, which won the 2014 and 2018 Telangana Assembly elections under ex-chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR).
Other senior BRS leaders like ex-deputy chief minister Kadiam Srihari, and K Keshava Rao also recently gave a jolt to KCR by leaving for the Congress. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to win eight Parliamentary seats each, while the BRS drew a blank.
The Lok Sabha election results in Telangana have signalled that the BJP is now a growing force in Telangana, which has been a concern among observers who believe that it may give rise to more communalism. “It is true that the BJP will grow if the BRS declines. However, the secular votes are also getting split between Congress and BRS,” added the TPCC leader.
It is to be seen if the Congress in Telangana under chief minister Revanth Reddy will be able to draw another 17 BRS MLAs to his fold in the coming 10 days before the budget session begins.
