Congress calls defection ‘support’; court calls it disqualification
The Telangana High Court disqualified Danam Nagender as Khairatabad MLA, effective April 23, 2024, after he contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket while elected on a BRS ticket.
The High Court set aside the Speaker’s decision and declared the Khairatabad Assembly seat vacant.
The Congress government’s preferred vocabulary has met the Telangana High Court’s less decorative version. The court disqualified Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender with effect from April 23, 2024, after finding that he contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket while holding an Assembly seat won on a BRS ticket. The court also declared the seat vacant and set aside Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar’s decision dismissing the disqualification petitions.
The petitions were filed by BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy and BJP Legislature Party leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy. The ruling concerned voluntary abandonment of party membership under the Tenth Schedule; it did not decide whether Congress offered money, office or any other inducement.
TPCC president B. Mahesh Kumar Goud rejected the inducement charge, saying the MLAs had only supported the “Praja Palana government” and that BRS began the culture of defections. Those are political claims, not findings in the judgment. Congress can call a candidate switch support if it likes. The court has called this one disqualification.