The 17 Congress and PR rebel MLAs loyal to Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday created a flutter on Monday by writing to the Chief Election Commissioner, requesting him to defer announcement of the schedule for the byelections to the seven vacant Assembly segments till the first week of April, 2012.
The rebel MLAs said that their seats also may fall vacant by then and bypolls could be conducted for all the 24 segments.
Generally, the EC takes the vacancies into cognisance for holding bypolls and it cannot rely on ifs and buts and claims that some vacancies are likely to be caused. While on one hand the MLAs said in their letter to the EC that the Congress has been requesting the Speaker to delay his decision on their disqualification to gain time, on the other hand, they also requested the EC to defer holding bypolls till the first week of April. This amounts to interference into the functioning of an independent Constitutional authority.
Strangely there was no mention why they requested EC to wait till the first week of April, when there is no guarantee that the Speaker will pronounce his judgment by then.
The MLAs stated in their letter that they have violated the Whip issued by the party on December 5 and the Congress Whip has filed a petition requesting he Speaker to disqualify all the MLAs under 10th Schedule. They informed the EC that the Speaker has completed all formalities but is not announcing his decision on their disqualification.
“If the Speaker announces his decision soon, the bypolls to these 17 vacancies also can be clubbed with the existing seven vacancies and could be held simultaneously,” they said.
Meanwhile, Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday demanded that the Speaker immediately disqualify Congress MLAs who had flouted the Whip and supported the YSR Congress during the No-confidence Motion against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government.
“Why is Speaker scared of taking action? Why this cowardice?”, he asked. The TD chief said that the Speaker should take immediate action against those who defy party Whip and on receiving a complaint.
