Uttam, others arrested for staging sit-in at Assembly

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Leader of Opposition in Assembly Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and others were arrested on Thursday after they staged a protest in Assembly against the merger attempts of Congress legislature party into the TRS.

The Congress leaders reached Assembly in the afternoon as soon as the news of merger attempts broke out. Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and MLA D Sridhar Babu reached the Assembly premises and tried to stage a sit in near Gandhi statue in the premises.

They were stopped by the police and the gate leading to the statue was locked. With this they staged a sit in at the gate. Later, they were joined by TPCC president and MP Uttam Kumar Reddy, former LOP in Council Shabbir Ali, MLA T Jagga Reddy, TPCC vice president Mallu Ravi and City Congress president Anjan Kumar Yadav.

Former MLA of Congress M Kodanda Reddy and others also tried to join the stir. However, the police stopped them. Congress senior leader V Hanumantha Rao who has been going to Assembly was arrested at Public Garden. Few leaders of the Congress who tried to enter the Assembly were arrested at Gandhi Bhavan. During the protest, Uttam tried to speak to Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy. However, the staff at the Speaker's residence said that he was not available.

The Congress leaders planned to go on a padayatra to Speaker's residence to demand that the merger of the Congress LP with TRS be stopped. They were arrested later and were sent to Tappa Chabutra police station.

Meanwhile, the Congress is planning to move the High Court against the decision of merger of Congress LP with TRS on Friday. The Speaker announced the decision of merger of Congress LP with TRS in the night of Thursday. The Congress has already filed a case in the High Court against the possible merger of its LP with TRS. It has been told by the court that the issue would be examined.

Uttam Kumar Reddy has also written a letter to Speaker Srinivas Reddy not to take merger decision without prior information to the TPCC and to treat the letter as a caveat. In that letter, Uttam said that merger of legislature party of national party with regional party was anti-constitutional. He said that the legislature party meeting should be held with the permission of the TPCC.

He made it clear that the MLAs of Congress who defected to TRS did not exit at one go and they were lured into the ruling party one by one. He said that the defected MLAs of the Congress have no right to hold a legislature party meeting.

He said each of the defectors has been paid crores to defect and the MLAs have been purchased, one at a time, over 4 months. The disqualification petition of the MLAs is pending with the Speaker for 4 months now, he said.