Hyderabad: The TS government has made a fresh plea to the Centre to take up the issue of enhancement of Assembly seats with the Election Commission of India. TS Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma on Friday wrote to Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, requesting the Centre to increase the number of Assembly seats in the state from 119 to 153. Dr Sharma wrote that as the increase will help strengthen the democratic institutions and ensure social justice to the people of the state, the Centre may place the matter before the ECI, as envisaged in Section 26 of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 as expeditiously as possible.
TRS sources said the request also has political overtones since Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao is keen on providing more opportunities to party leaders who could not get tickets in their respective constituencies and also to accommodate leaders who had joined the party from the Congress, TD and other parties. “There are too many leaders in each Assembly constituency who will be vying for tickets in the next elections. Defections from the TD and Congress have made the situation quite complex. Unless there is increase in the number of seats, TRS leadership will have a tough time in 2019,” a TRS legislator said.
