Hyderabad: Two Congress ministers, N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, on Thursday took oath as MLAs in the third Telangana Legislative Assembly.
Uttam Kumar Reddy, holding irrigation and command area development, food and civil supplies portfolios and Venkat Reddy holding the roads and buildings and cinematography portfolios, could not take oath on December 9 as they were still members of the Lok Sabha on that date. They subsequently resigned as Lok Sabha members and on Thursday took oath as MLAs in Telangana.
Also taking oath on Thursday were BJP leader T. Raja Singh and seven other BJP MLA elects, on with the newly sworn-in Speaker, Gaddam Prasad Kumar in the chair. The BJP legislators had refused to take oath along with the rest of the MLA elects on December 9 objecting to AIMIM’s senior MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi in the chair as the pro-tem Speaker.
Those who took oath along with Raja Singh were BJP members Alleti Maheshwar Reddy, Dhanpal Suryanarayana, K. Venata Ramana Reddy, Paidi Rakesh Reddy, Dr Palvai Harish Babu, Payal Shankar and Pawar Rama Rao Patel.
Venkat Ramana Reddy, who won a close contest in Kamareddy defeating former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao from the BRS and A. Revanth Reddy from Congress, the current Chief Minister, walked across the aisle after taking the oath, greeted and shook hands with Revanth Reddy.
