Telangana High Court has instructed MLA Danam Nagender and Telangana Legislature Secretary to submit responses to BJP Legislative Party leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy’s petition challenging the Assembly Speaker’s dismissal of his disqualification plea against Nagender. The court has initiated the hearing on the petition and issued notices to the MLA and the Legislature Secretary. Maheshwar Reddy seeks to annul the Speaker’s decision rejecting his disqualification petition filed in July 2024.
The petition alleges that Danam Nagender, elected on a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) ticket in the 2023 Assembly elections, relinquished his party membership by running as a Congress candidate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Maheshwar contends that the Speaker dismissed the disqualification plea without verifying if the MLA had voluntarily abandoned party membership. Citing Supreme Court precedents from Karnataka and Bihar, Maheshwar Reddy argues his case.
Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar, on March 11, dismissed disqualification petitions against Nagender and another MLA, Kadiyam Srihari, who purportedly switched allegiance to the Congress in 2024. The Speaker concluded that the petitioners failed to furnish evidence of the MLAs defecting to the Congress party. Various MLAs had filed disqualification petitions against those who switched loyalties to the Congress in 2024, resulting in the Speaker dismissing all 10 BRS MLAs’ disqualification petitions.
