Supreme Court leaves Congress’s Khairatabad switch without a seat
The court dismissed Danam Nagender’s challenge, leaving the High Court’s disqualification order in force. No by-election schedule has been announced.
The Khairatabad Assembly seat remains vacant, with no by-election schedule announced.
The Supreme Court has dismissed Danam Nagender’s challenge to his disqualification, leaving the Khairatabad Assembly seat vacant. The Congress gets to keep the political drama; it does not get to keep the seat.
Nagender won Khairatabad on a BRS ticket in the 2023 Telangana election with 67,368 votes, according to the Election Commission. The Supreme Court’s July 2025 judgment recorded petitioners’ allegation that he joined the Congress on March 15, 2024. The Telangana High Court later set aside the Speaker’s rejection of the disqualification petition and ordered that Nagender stood disqualified from April 23, 2024, the date he filed his Lok Sabha nomination as a Congress candidate.
Two reports on September 24 said the Supreme Court found no reason to interfere and dismissed Nagender’s challenge. The full order was not available in the court database reviewed. No by-election notification or schedule has been announced, and the ruling does not automatically decide the cases of other MLAs accused of switching sides. For now, Khairatabad has a vacancy, a date going back to April 2024, and a Congress switch that has survived precisely nowhere.