(Prashanth Reddy)
Union minister of state for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy defended the merger Telugu Desam Rajya Sabha party with BJP in Parliament.
Talking to media, Reddy said the merger took place as per the procedure, and it was not the first time that a split away faction joined another party in the Parliament.
“Four TDP members from Rajya Sabha said their party in the upper house had resolved to form into a separate group, and merge with BJP. Their request to join BJP had been discussed in the party by the president Amit Shah. They also had given a lettr to the chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Every decision has been taken as per the statute,” Reddy said in Hyderabad.
The MoS Home had dismissed the criticism that the four TDP members violated the provision of the Anti-Defection Act,1985.
As many as 16 mergers took place in Parliament in tune with the 10 schedules i.e Anti-Defection Law, he added.
Recalling how TDP indulged in horse-trading between 2014 and 2019 in Andhra Pradesh, he said, the party should explain people as to how it admitted the 23 YSRC MLAs and inducted a few of them into cabinet circumventing the Anti-Defection Law.
He slammed TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu for introducing the culture of political defection in Andhra politics by engineering defections.
Can Naidu tell people how he toppled democratically elected government led by NTR and became chief minister in 1994, he asked.
kishan Reddy advised Naidu to look back into his past before questioning the legality of the merger of TDP faction with BJP in Rajya Sabha.
Kishan also slammed all those who were lamenting on the merger and asked them why there were silent when 12 Congress MLAs brazenly called themselves as real CLP and merged with TRS two weeks ago.