The Speaker’s decision to put off a decision on the disqualification of 17 Congress and Praja Rajyam MLAs owing allegiance to the Jagan Mohan Reddy group has come as a breather to the party leadership which is expecting the arrest of the YSR Congress chief.
Congress circles expect the arrest of Jagan Mohan Reddy any time between now and April 2, the last date when the CBI has to file the chargesheet in the illegal assets case.
The CBI had arrested Jagan Mohan Reddy’s auditor Vijay Sai Reddy, the accused no. 2 in the case, on January 2, and the expectation is that the agency will have to file its chargesheet by April 2. Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy is accused no. 1 in the case.
A top source told this newspaper on Sunday that if the 17 MLAs were to be disqualified now, the seats represented by them would be declared vacant and the Election Commission would be bound to conduct bypolls within six months from the date of the notification.
There are already seven vacant seats to which bypolls will have to be conducted before April 30. The Election Commission, which is occupied with elections in Uttar Pradesh and Goa, is most likely to take a decision sometime in the first week of March.
If by that time the 17 seats also fall vacant, the EC will have to take this into cognisance and will conduct bypolls for all 24 seats.
Jagan arrest likely in April
Since YSR Congress chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is expected to be arrested before April 2 in the illegal assets case, holding bypolls around that time in the seats that would fall vacant may create a sympathy wave in favour of the candidates put up by him.
Y.S. Vijayalakshmi hitting the roads on the issue will cost the Congress dear, said the source. In order to avoid an ignominious defeat both in Telangana, on account of the Telangana factor and in Seemandhra because of the Jagan factor, the source said that the party leadership had decided to wait before disqualifying the 17 MLAs to avoid immediate by-polls.
“Bypolls to the 17 seats could be deferred by another six months so that the Congress could effectively overcome the sympathy wave,” said the source. However, a police source said that the CBI was not bound to arrest Jagan Mohan Reddy before April 2 without getting convincing evidence about his involvement in the case.
“He could have been arrested in the illegal mining case, the Emaar scam and in his own illegal assets case by now, but the CBI will not arrest him without tangible evidence of his involvement .”
