Shabbir Ali challenges KTR to open debate on defections, offers to quit politics if proven wrong

Hyderabad: Congress senior leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir has issued an open challenge to BRS working president K Taraka Rama Rao for an open debate on the defection of MLAs, MLCs and MPs. Speaking to the media at Gandhi Bhavan on Friday, Shabbir Ali dismissed KTR’s allegations that Congress initiated the culture of defections, asserting that it was BRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao who both started and legalised this practice. “I’ve already shared a date-wise list of MLAs, MLCs, and MPs who were made to defect to BRS from 2014-2023,” he stated.

Shabbir Ali highlighted that defections began from the day KCR came to power. On June 2, 2014, the day Telangana was formed, two BSP MLAs, Indrakaran Reddy and Koneru Konappa, defected to the BRS. On December 16, 2014, TDP MLA Talasani Srinivas Yadav was appointed minister without resigning from his party. He continued as a TRS Minister while remaining a TDP MLA for 14 months and 24 days. As per the rules, Srinivas Yadav should have resigned within six months and faced bye-elections.

During his first term as Chief Minister (2014-2018), KCR orchestrated the defection of 4 MPs, 25 MLAs, and 18 MLCs, totalling 47 defections. In his second term (2018-2023), another 14 MLAs, including 12 from Congress and two from TDP, defected to the BRS. He said none of these MLAs defected at once, as claimed by KTR. In KCR’s first term, the first defection occurred on June 2, 2014, and the last one occurred on June 15, 2016, when CPI MLA R Ravinder Kumar and Congress MLA N Bhaskar Rao joined the TRS. Therefore, the defections continued for over two years under KCR’s first term, he said. Similarly, in KCR's second term, two Congress MLAs were made to defect on March 2, 2020, and the last defection was on April 7, 2021, when two TDP MLAs joined TRS. In this term, too, KCR engineered defections for nearly two years, he added.

Shabbir Ali called on KTR to accept the challenge for an open debate instead of targeting Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on defections.