Danam’s seat, Congress ticket, court notice
Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender won on a BRS ticket in 2023, then fought Secunderabad Lok Sabha on a Congress ticket. Disqualification petitions were dismissed by the Speaker in March; the fight is now in the Telangana High Court.
The Speaker’s order is being challenged in the Telangana High Court.
Danam Nagender’s political arithmetic is simple enough: BRS MLA from Khairatabad in 2023, Congress candidate for Secunderabad in 2024 — and still an MLA while doing it. The arithmetic under the Tenth Schedule is what the courts are now being asked to solve.
On March 11, the Telangana Assembly Speaker dismissed disqualification petitions against Nagender and Kadiyam Srihari, saying the petitioners hadn’t produced sufficient proof that they had “voluntarily given up” their original party. A BJP petitioner, floor leader A. Maheshwar Reddy, has challenged that order in the High Court, which has issued notices to the Speaker and to Nagender and listed the matter for hearing. That means the status is contested, not closed.
BRS, for its part, says it will challenge the Speaker’s wider decision and also approach the Election Commission over Nagender contesting Parliament on a Congress ticket while holding a BRS-won Assembly seat. The legal question is straightforward: does fighting an election on another party’s symbol amount to giving up your old party? The Speaker said the evidence filed didn’t get there; the court will now test that reasoning.
One report this week, citing unnamed functionaries on both sides, claimed Nagender is trying to return to the BRS — and that Congress insists he’s still “very much in the party”. The report also relays flattering remarks he allegedly made about BRS leaders in a social-media interview, but the original recording wasn’t located in the material we could verify. Until it is, those quotes and the supposed “homecoming” are political claims, not facts on record.
What is on record is a Congress ticket, a BRS-won MLA seat, a Speaker’s dismissal, and a court notice. The BJP is arguing the defection rule should bite; the BRS says it will press the case; and the Congress, which benefitted from the Parliament run, has not bothered to explain why this isn’t defection when it suits them.