Hyderabad, March 23 (IANS) Telangana High Court on Monday directed MLA Danam Nagender and Telangana Legislature Secretary to file counters to the petition of BJP Legislative Party leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy, challenging the order passed by the Assembly Speaker dismissing his disqualification petition against Nagender.
The High Court took up the petition for hearing and ordered notices to be served to the MLA and the Legislature Secretary.
The BJP leader has sought a direction to quash and set aside the Speaker’s order rejecting the disqualification petition filed by him in July 2024.
The petition alleged that Danam Nagender, who was elected on a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) ticket in the 2023 Assembly elections, had voluntarily given up his party membership by contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as a Congress candidate.
The petitioner argued that Nagender contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket without resigning from the BRS, thus attracting disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
Maheshwar contended that the Speaker dismissed the disqualification petition without examining whether the MLA had voluntarily given up membership of the party.
Maheshwar Reddy cited the Supreme Court orders on similar petitions in Karnataka and Bihar.
Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar, on March 11, dismissed the petitions for the disqualification of Nagender and another MLA, Kadiyam Srihari, who had allegedly switched loyalties to the Congress in 2024.
The Speaker ruled that the petitioners had failed to provide evidence that the two MLAs defected to the Congress party.
BRS MLA Kaushik Reddy and BJP MLA Maheshwar Reddy had filed petitions for the disqualification of Nagender, while BRS MLA K. P. Vivekanand had filed a petition for the disqualification of Srihari.
With this, the Speaker has dismissed petitions for the disqualification of all 10 BRS MLAs who switched loyalties to Congress in 2024, a few months after the grand old party came to power in the state.
In December 2025, he dismissed petitions for the disqualification of five MLAs -- Tellam Venkat Rao, Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy, T. Prakash Goud, Gudem Mahipal Reddy, and Arekapudi Gandhi.
He dismissed the petitions for the disqualification of Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and Kale Yadaiah on January 15.
On February 4, the Speaker dismissed the petition for the disqualification of BRS MLA Sanjay Kumar.
In all the cases, the Speaker ruled that the petitioners failed to provide evidence that the MLAs defected to the Congress party, making it clear that the Anti-Defection Act could not be applied.
--IANS
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