If you are in power, whatever you do is considered right. But the same rule does not apply to the opposition parties.
Take for instance, the petition filed by Telangana Rashtra Samithi leaders in the state legislative council – chief whip Paturi Sudhakar Reddy and whip Palla Rajeshwar Reddy to the state legislative council chairman Swamy Goud the other day.
In their petition, they urged Goud to disqualify four TRS MLCs who had defected to the Congress party just before the recent assembly elections -- Bhupati Reddy, Konda Murali, Yadava Reddy and Ramulu Naik.
The TRS leaders alleged that the four MLCs had shifted loyalties only to further their self-interests.
Without losing any time, Swamy Goud served show-cause notices to the four defected MLCs asking them why they should not be disqualified.
He asked them to give their responses within 10 days. Apparently, TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao wanted to fill up the vacancies arising out of their disqualification with his own party leaders at the earliest.
Now, the question is why the same rule of disqualification would not be applicable to the TRS, which had admitted several Congress and the Telugu Desam Party legislators in the past. Congress MLC Mohammad Shabbir Ali also lodged a complaint with Swamy Goud seeking disqualification of K Damodar Reddy, who had also defected from Congress to TRS just before the elections.
“We gave a similar complaint earlier also seeking his disqualification, but no action was taken by the council chairman. When the TRS leaders gave the complaint against four MLCs, he acted swiftly. Why is this discrimination?” Shabbir Ali asked.
Even in the past assembly, as many as seven MLAs from Congress and 12 MLAs from TDP defected to the TRS and one of them – Talasani Srinivasa Yadav was also given the cabinet post.
Yet, assembly speaker S Madhusudhana Chary did not bother to look into the complaints seeking their disqualification!
