Hyderabad: Congress leader and Telangana government advisor Mohammed Ali Shabbir hailed the Supreme Court’s verdict on disqualification petitions as a clear rejection of BRS’s political duplicity. He said the ruling affirms the Assembly Speaker’s constitutional authority and exposes the double standards of former CM K. Chandrashekar Rao’s party.
Speaking to the media, Shabbir Ali said the apex court rightly dismissed K.T. Rama Rao’s petition, reinforcing that the Speaker has full powers to rule on defections. “We expected this result. The court made it clear that efforts to weaken the Speaker’s office won’t stand,” he said.
Shabbir Ali accused BRS of hypocrisy. “The same party that manipulated the anti-defection law for a decade now wants protection from it,” he said. He described KCR as the architect of a political culture built on engineered defections.
According to him, from the day of Telangana’s formation June 2, 2014 BRS encouraged MLAs to join its ranks without resigning. “Ministers like Talasani Srinivas Yadav remained in post for months while officially belonging to the opposition,” he noted.
Shabbir Ali said that in KCR’s first term alone, 4 MPs, 25 MLAs, and 18 MLCs switched to BRS. In the second term, 12 Congress and 2 TDP legislators also defected. “These weren’t isolated incidents. BRS made the Speaker’s office a tool to avoid by-elections,” he alleged.
He added that he lost his role as Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council due to BRS engineering Congress MLC defections.
On the court’s order, Shabbir Ali clarified that it doesn’t limit the Speaker’s powers but sets a deadline for action. “The message is simple constitutional posts must function, not stall for political gain,” he said.
He concluded by stating that BRS’s position had backfired. “KCR used the Speaker to silence the opposition. Now, when facing the same scrutiny, he cries foul. That contradiction has finally been exposed,” he said.
