The party has the unenviable task of landing at least 26 of the total 38 BRS MLAs to merge the BRSLP into the Congress legislature party.
Published Aug 21, 2024 | 12:00 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 21, 2024 | 12:00 PM
File photo of Revanth Reddy with Pocharam Srinivas Reddy. (Supplied)
Suddenly, defections into the Congress from the BRS have stopped. Now everything is quiet on the Congress front. There is no talk of cabinet expansion, filling of the PCC chief post and the merger of the BRS legislature party in the Congress.
After Revanth Reddy took over as the chief minister of the state in December last year, engineering defections from the BRS seemed to be top on his agenda. Apart from landing 10 BRS MLAs, the party was successful in spiriting away important leaders including MPs and quite a few leaders at the local bodies’ level.
The reason for the lull is not hard to find. The party has the unenviable task of landing at least 26 of the total 38 BRS MLAs to merge the BRSLP into the Congress legislature party. Though it had landed 10 MLAs, others seem to have developed cold feet over the ability of Congress to get an additional 16 MLAs.
If the Congress fails, they will have to stew in their juices. Already the BRS has moved the High Court against three of them seeking disqualification.
There are quite a few MLAs in the BRS who are ready to switch sides, but they want a categorical assurance that they will be fielded in the next Assembly elections on Congress tickets. As the Congress is a national party, giving an assurance is not easy unlike in regional parties like the BRS where the party chief’s assurance is enough.
In the Congress, it is much more difficult as decisions are always delayed till the last minute and are taken in Delhi. It is difficult for the Congress to give assurance to the BRS MLAs of the party ticket in the next assembly elections which are more than four years away.
Even Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy may not be able to give such an assurance. Despite his best efforts, he could not get tickets to his loyalists – Patel Ramesh Reddy in Suryapet and Addanki Dayakar in Tungaturthy, in the last elections.
Then there is another problem for those who want to switch parties now. When KCR was the chief minister of the state, he could spirit away the Congress MLAs just by snapping his fingers but for Revanth Reddy to do it is difficult as the scenario has changed.
Now there are two court judgments which deal with defections. One dealt with the defection of Congress MLA T Shyam Kumar Singh into the BJP in Manipur who became a minister. The apex court in 2020 set a deadline for the speaker to spell out his verdict on the petition before him.
In October last year, the Supreme Court took serious objection to the Maharashtra Speaker for not acting on the petition for disqualification of 40 of the 55 Shiv Sena MLAs after they joined hands with Eknath Shinde and formed a government with BJP support.
The apex court laid down a specific period for the Speaker to take action on disqualification petitions failing which the petitioner was free to seek legal recourse.
With the BRS working president KT Rama Rao repeatedly referring to the two judgments, and the Congress leadership unable to give any categorical assurance that party tickets would be allotted to them in the next elections, the BRS MLAs have adopted a wait-and-watch attitude.
As the BRS has already lost 10 MLAs, it wants to stop the haemorrhage by reciting the two Supreme Court directions, to scare those who are entertaining ideas of joining the Congress.
KTR has been saying that in the constituencies where the BRS MLAS have joined the Congress, by-elections are sure to take place, apparently with an intention to dissuade those who are assessing which side of the fence the grass is greener.
In the Congress, there would be no guarantee to the BRS MLAs that they would be fielded as Congress candidate even in the by-elections in the event of their disqualification.
As it is difficult to predict the decisions of the Congress — it is known to change its mind at the eleventh hour — no BRS MLA could take the risk of disqualification and being left high and dry, losing out on both fronts.
Then, even if the party nominates such MLAs in the by-elections, there is no guarantee that they would win since a lot of water has flowed in the Musi after the last elections in November-December last year with the BRS trying to tarnish the image of the Congress day and night.
For the Congress, in case of a by-election, it may not be very easy to win this time with more than 50 percent of the farmers who had taken crop loans up to ₹2 lakh being left out in the crop loan waiver scheme.
The BRS MLAs who join the Congress also would have to watch out for the hostile atmosphere in their constituencies. In the last Assembly elections, they, contesting on the BRS ticket, had vanquished the local Congress leaders. Already there is a lot of bad blood between them.
Now, if the same BRS MLAs come into the Congress and lord over those who lost to them in the Assembly elections, it would be like an outsider rubbing salt into the injury.
This has come to the fore openly in Mahabubangar district after Gadwal BRS MLA B Krishna Mohan Reddy joined the Congress. Saritha Tirupathaiah, the Congress leader who lost the election to Krishna Mohan Reddy – created a ruckus in the party when he was about to join the party and recently her supporters attacked Prohibition and Excise Minister Jupally Krishna Rao’s convoy when he visited Gadwal and met Krishna Mohan Reddy.
Saritha Tirupataiah’s faction believes that Krishna Rao was responsible for Krishna Mohan Reddy’s entry into the Congress, hurting her interests in the party.
Similarly, when Jagtiyal MLA Dr M Sanjay Kumar joined the Congress, the local Congress leader and MLC T Jeevan Reddy had almost rebelled against the party. He had held a meeting with his party workers and expressed his desire to leave the party.
Jeevan Reddy had fought and lost the last Assembly election from Jagtiyal against Sanjay Kumar. He feared that he would have to play the second fiddle to Sanjay.
The party leadership swung into action and pacified him by assuring him that he would be considered for renomination for the MLC berth when his term ends in 2025 besides appointing him as the chairman of the Rythu Bharosa committee. But the embers continue to smoulder.
It remains to be seen what tricks Revanth Reddy has up his sleeve in spiriting away the BRS MLAs to facilitate the merger of the BRSLP into the CLP or whether he would leave the BRS alone for the time being.
