BRS prepares for legal battles against leaders who switched sides

NEW DELHI: Having lost several of its legislators to Congress in a steady flow before and after the recent parliamentary polls and failing to win a single Lok Sabha seat from Telengana, Bharat Rashtra Samithy (BRS) is trying to fight back, by preparing for a legal battle against its legislators who have switched sides.
Slamming Congress for the “unconstitutional” defections, BRS working president K T Rama Rao (KTR) on Tuesday, said, apart from approaching all constitutional authorities, his party is planning to file a petition in the Supreme Court against the defecting members.
Accusing Congress of “taking unconstitutional path while talking of saving the Constitution,” KTR, son of party chief and former Telengana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, said, “the way Congress is engineering defections from the BRS camp in Telengana, goes against the Anti-Defection law, (1985),” while speaking to journalists here on Tuesday.
Down to four MPs in Rajya Sabha, the BRS leadership, plans to approach the President, the Vice President who is also chairman of Rajya Sabha, the Election Commission and finally the Apex Court on the defection issue. "We will meet all those who are custodians of the Constitution," KTR told reporters here on Tuesday.
The BRS’s aggressive move comes in response to a recent wave of defections that saw seven of its MLAs, six MLCs and one Rajya Sabha MP switch allegiance to Congress. The Telengana party now has 31 MLAs, 22 MLCs and four Rajya Sabha members.
Asked about inductions into its own fold, from other parties including Congress, when BRS was the ruling party in Telengana for two consecutive terms from 2014, KTR sought to differentiate between the two switching of sides. Justifying the switchovers into BRS, he said, “there is a difference between merger and defection. There is a law against defection. When leaders joined us, it was mergers, not defections, which is allowed under the Constitution.”
Even as KTR said that BRS will keep equal distance from Congress and BJP at the national level and take issue-based stand in Rajya Sabha.
However, with a Congress government in Telengana, BRS is part of the opposition in the state where it intends to revive, and hence the party has reason to walk with BJP, to keep itself afloat.
The BRS leader urged "all victims of BJP and Congress to join BRS in its fight against defections."
Pointing out that a petition against the defected BRS members is already pending in the Telangana High Court, he noted that according to a 2020 Supreme Court order, the assembly Speaker has three months to decide on the status of the defected party members. "If the Speaker does not do justice, we will knock on the door of the Supreme Court. We are here for the last two days consulting with legal experts," he added.
Reflecting on the BRS' recent electoral defeat, KTR acknowledged gaps in the party's connection with the voters. "We implemented many welfare schemes, but it seems we could not effectively communicate them to the people," he said, taking responsibility for the loss.