Is an MLA contesting MP poll on another party’s B-Form not defection? asks Harish Rao

HYDERABAD

Ridiculing the Congress enactment for its treble standards successful the substance of upholding the Constitution, Deputy Floor Leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) successful Telangana Assembly, T. Harish Rao, said that going astir with a transcript of the statute publication won’t service immoderate purpose.

In an unfastened missive addressed to the Leader of the Opposition successful Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, connected Friday, the BRS person said: “The Constitution tin not beryllium defended done speeches alone. It indispensable beryllium upheld done actions, particularly erstwhile it is politically inconvenient”.

He reminded Mr. Gandhi that Congress party’s 2024 Lok Sabha predetermination manifesto promised to fortify the antiauthoritarian institutions and uphold the anti-defection model to support the people’s mandate. However, what was happened successful Telangana exposed a glaring contradiction betwixt what helium (Gandhi) preached and what his enactment was practised wherever it was successful power.

Taking the illustration of Khairatabad legislator Danam Nagender, Mr. Harish Rao said the erstwhile was elected arsenic an MLA connected the summons of BRS and openly contested the Lok Sabha predetermination utilizing an authoritative Congress B-Form issued by the Indian National Congress. “It’s not speculation, not hearsay and is simply a substance of nationalist record”, helium said, adding that the Telangana Assembly Speaker yet ruled that determination was nary grounds of defection.

If contesting an predetermination connected a Congress B-Form portion being an MLA of different enactment was not the grounds of shifting parties, past the state deserves to cognize what precisely was grounds of defection nether the Tenth Schedule. “Is this however the Congress enactment protects the Constitution? Is this the “Constitutional morality” you lecture the federation about?” Mr. Harish Rao asked.

When a legislator elected connected a party’s mandate contests [as an MP] nether different party’s banner and inactive continues arsenic MLA without disqualification, the tone of the Constitution is reduced to a governmental slogan, Mr. Harish Rao said and added: “You tin not assertion to support the Constitution successful Delhi portion allowing your enactment to dilute it successful Telangana”.