12 party MLAs who defected to TRS should resign and seek re-election: Telangana Congress

HYDERABAD: The Congress has demanded that the 12 Congress MLA's who defected to the ruling TRS should resign to their MLA posts or chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao should ask them to resign.
Former MP and Telangana Congress working president Ponnam Prabhakar on Saturday said that ex-minister Eatala Rajender has resigned to his MLA post before formally joining the BJP.
“This is the proper and ethical way of leaving a political party to join another political entity.Eatala is most likely to seek re-election from Huzurabad on a BJP ticket. Likewise. even the defected Congress MLAs should resign and seek re-election on TRS ticket because they had won from their respective constituencies on Congress ticket,” Ponnam said.
It was in June 2019 that 12 Congress MLAs, who constituted two-thirds of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), joined the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party (TRSLP) in the state legislative assembly.
As a result, the number of Congress legislators’ strength fell from 19 to six, and it lost opposition party status in the assembly. The assembly secretariat issued a bulletin confirming the merger of the CLP MLAs with the TRS in the evening.
Though 19 Congress candidates were elected as MLAs, TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy resigned to his Huzurnagar assembly seat following his election to from Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat, and later the party could not retain the seat in the by-poll.
“Till today, the 12 MLAs who defected from Congress to TRS, have not resigned,” said Ponnam Prabhakar.