Congress’s defection maths meets April 23

The Telangana High Court has done what the anti-defection law was presumably designed to do: count the paperwork. It set aside Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar’s decision and disqualified Danam Nagender from April 23, 2024 — the day he filed nomination as a Congress candidate for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat while still an MLA elected on a BRS ticket. The court declared the Khairatabad seat vacant. [1]

The court held that filing the nomination was sufficient to establish that Nagender had voluntarily given up BRS membership under the Tenth Schedule and Article 191(2) of the Constitution. It found the Speaker’s contrary decision unsustainable and marked by a “serious jurisdictional error”. The decisive evidence was the Congress candidate list, Nagender’s Form 26 affidavit and the Election Commission’s result record — rather more solid than the usual scarf-and-photograph theatre. [2]

Nagender has challenged the ruling in the Supreme Court. The research reviewed found no order staying the High Court judgment or restoring his membership. The seat is therefore vacant under the High Court order, though the challenge remains pending. The Congress government’s defection arithmetic has reached the courts, where even nomination forms apparently retain a memory.