Congress gets one MLA lighter, effective April 2024
The Telangana High Court disqualified Danam Nagender, set aside the Speaker’s order and declared Khairatabad vacant. The Congress now has an appeal-shaped problem.
The High Court declared the Khairatabad Assembly seat vacant, with an appeal reportedly moving to the Supreme Court.
The Telangana High Court has disqualified Danam Nagender as Khairatabad MLA, set aside Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar’s decision and declared the seat vacant. The order was made effective from April 23, 2024 — the date Nagender filed his nomination as a Congress candidate for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat while still an MLA elected on a BRS ticket, according to the reported operative wording of the order.
A division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G. M. Mohiuddin allowed petitions by BJP leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy and BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy. It also declined to suspend the order while Nagender approached the Supreme Court. The Election Commission and the Speaker were directed to be informed.
The Speaker had earlier found that Nagender had not incurred disqualification. The High Court has now set that finding aside. Nagender has reportedly moved the Supreme Court, though the petition had not been listed in the report available for this story. The Congress has not publicly answered why its Lok Sabha candidate continued to hold a BRS-elected Assembly seat until the court intervened.
The ruling settles Nagender’s case, not every defection case in Telangana. The Congress cannot turn one court order into a mass verdict, however much its party arithmetic may prefer the shortcut.