Obviously refusing to see the face of his former cabinet colleague Eatala Rajender in the assembly in the opposition benches, Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao got all the three Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs suspended from the house on Monday.
The suspension was not just for one day, but for the entire budget session, obviously indicating that the chief minister would not like to see the faces of the BJP legislators, particularly Eatala Rajender, who defected from the TRS to the BJP and got re-elected from Huzurabad assembly seat in November last.
The three BJP MLAs – M Raghunandan Rao, T Raja Singh and Eatala Rajender, in fact, did not create any major disturbance in the House.
They came to the assembly wearing black stoles and raising slogans protesting against the government’s move to avoid the customary address by the Governor on the beginning of the budget session.
The BJP members were only standing in their seats and protesting; they did not even storm the podium or create any ruckus or raise any loud-shouting slogans, when state finance minister T Harish Rao was presenting the budget.
Even as Harish Rao’s speech was going on smoothly, the government chose to suspend the BJP MLAs not just for the day, but for the entire assembly session.
Following instructions from the chief minister, state animal husbandry minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav proposed a resolution for suspension of the BJP members. Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy read out the motion and suspended the three BJP members.
On the other hand, the six Congress MLAs, too, walked out of the session in protest against the lack of the Governor’s address of the House.
The government maintained that since the House was not prorogued, the sessions need not start with the speech of the Governor.
