BRS has no moral right to speak on defections: Congress

Hyderabad, March 19:  Senior Congress leader and advisor to the Telangana government Mohammed Ali Shabbir said on Tuesday that the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has no moral right to speak on defections.

He ridiculed BRS leaders' stance on the return of Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender to the Congress fold.

Mohammed Ali Shabbir stated that former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao could be crowned as the mastermind behind engineering defections in opposition parties.

He recalled that KCR initiated the culture of defection shortly after assuming power in June 2014. Between 2014 and 2018, KCR engineered the defection of 4 MPs, 25 MLAs, and 18 MLCs.

Furthermore, in his second term, he engineered the defection of 14 MLAs, including 12 from the Congress party. BRS also made thousands of Sarpanches, ZPTC, MPTC, Councillors, Corporators and other leaders defect to BRS from the then opposition parties.

The former minister pointed out that the BRS party survived and thrived solely on the basis of defections.

"KCR decimated the entire opposition. He could not tolerate any opposition presence in the State. Between March 2 and June 6, 2020, he engineered the defection of 12 Congress MLAs to deprive Dalit leader Bhatti Vikramarka of Leader of Opposition status. Similarly, he induced Congress MLCs to defect to BRS to prevent me, a Muslim leader, from assuming the position of Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council, despite only one month remaining in my term," he said.

He remarked that BRS leaders had shamelessly filed a disqualification petition against Danam Nagender and demanded Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar take action within three months.

He recalled that Talasani Srinivas Yadav, elected on a TDP ticket, was inducted into KCR's cabinet without resigning as MLA from the Sanathnagar constituency.

He unlawfully served as a cabinet minister for over a year, and BRS did not consider the implications of the anti-defection law. However, the same BRS leaders are preaching morality on defections and expecting everyone to act ethically.

"If an MLA joining the ruling party for the development of his constituency and people was right during the BRS regime, how did it become wrong under the Congress regime?" he asked.

Nevertheless, he stressed that Congress does not believe in flouting laws and would never engage in anything unconstitutional.

Mohammed Ali Shabbir noted that BRS leaders subtly threatened to topple the Congress government led by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and they are making statements insinuating that the Congress has a slim majority and its government would collapse if 5-6 MLAs rebel. By doing so, they hinted at the possibility of luring some MLAs to create political instability. Given everyone's awareness of KCR's penchant for engineering defections, the Congress party is taking precautions to ensure stability.

"CM Revanth Reddy has opened the party's doors to all well-wishers who want the Congress Government to endure, strengthen, and develop Telangana State," he said.

He believes that many BRS MLAs, MLCs, MPs, and other leaders will join the Congress party soon.