Harish Rao questions Sridhar Babu for logical explanation for “opposition” MLA Arekapudi attending CLP meeting

Harish Rao expressed disbelief at Sridhar Babu’s justification, calling it an utter disrespect to the constitution.

Hyderabad: Former Minister and senior BRS leader T Harish Rao questioned Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu for logical explanation over “opposition” MLA Arekapudi Gandhi attending the Congress Legislative Party meeting here on Sunday. His remarks came in response to the Minister’s justification of appointing defected MLA Arekapudi Gandhi as Public Accounts Committee chairman, stating that the latter is a BRS MLA and did not join the ruling Congress.

Sharing videos of Gandhi attending the CLP meeting on Sunday evening on X, Harish Rao asked Sridhar Babu to stop making misleading statements regarding defections of BRS MLAs to the Congress. He expressed disbelief at Sridhar Babu’s justification, calling it an utter disrespect to the constitution.

Mocking previous Congress attempts to justify defections, the senior BRS MLA recalled that they once misled people by calling Congress party scarves offered to defected MLAs as ‘religious scarves. Now, he said they might claim attending a CLP meeting is just courtesy.

“The attendance of BRS MLAs Kadiam Srihari and Arekapudi Gandhi at the CLP meeting was not a mere “courtesy call,” but a serious breach of political ethics. How can an MLA of one party attend another party’s LP meeting? This is not a ‘courtesy’ but a violation of constitutional conduct,” he added.

Harish Rao pointed out that while MLAs from opposition parties might meet the Chief Minister during government programmes in their respective constituencies, they would never attend the ruling party’s LP meetings as an opposition MLA. He suggested that the Congress to respect constitutional provisions between parties.