The MLA who changed parties before changing seats
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Danam Nagender’s challenge to his disqualification after the Telangana High Court declared Khairatabad vacant.
The Khairatabad seat remains vacant as the disqualification challenge reaches the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has listed Danam Nagender’s challenge for September 23, after the Telangana High Court disqualified him as Khairatabad MLA with effect from April 23, 2024. The Court’s published cause list confirms the date; the hearing outcome is not yet established in the available record.
Nagender won Khairatabad on a BRS ticket in December 2023. On April 23, 2024, he filed his nomination as an INC candidate for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat, contested against the BRS candidate, and lost. The High Court held that the nomination itself amounted to voluntarily giving up BRS membership under the Tenth Schedule. It set aside the Speaker’s March 11 order dismissing the disqualification petitions, declared the seat vacant and rejected Nagender’s request to suspend the ruling pending appeal.
The Supreme Court challenge now has urgency attached to it because Nagender’s counsel argued that an Election Commission by-election notification could follow. No such notification is confirmed in the material reviewed. The Congress route from BRS MLA to disqualified MLA has, for now, produced a vacant seat and a court date.