The Telangana Assembly Speaker, Gaddam Prasad Kumar, has scheduled a hearing for January 30 to address the disqualification petitions against MLA Danam Nagender and several other legislators. The hearings will involve both Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and BJP members.
Nagender, who was elected on a BRS ticket but recently aligned with the Congress, has been summoned to appear before the Speaker for the hearing. Kaushik Reddy, who submitted the disqualification petition against Nagender, will also attend the proceedings. Additionally, BJP floor leader in the Assembly, A. Maheshwar Reddy, has filed a separate petition seeking Nagender’s disqualification.
In his defense, Nagender asserts that he has not resigned from the BRS and denies receiving any communication about his suspension from the party. He has submitted an affidavit urging the Speaker to dismiss the disqualification petition.
The Speaker had previously dismissed seven out of ten disqualification petitions against BRS MLAs who were accused of defecting to the Congress in 2024. The Speaker ruled that the petitioners failed to provide evidence supporting the allegations. Despite this, the Speaker is yet to pronounce the order regarding the plea for the disqualification of MLA Sanjay Kumar and two other MLAs, Danam Nagender and Kadiyam Srihari. The hearings for these three cases could not be conducted due to the non-submission of replies from the concerned legislators in response to the notices served on them.
The BRS has expressed concern that these MLAs openly joined the Congress and sat in the Treasury Benches in the Assembly, a claim contested by the MLAs themselves who asserted that they merely met Chief Minister Revanth Reddy for developmental purposes in their constituencies.
