Four Telugu Desam Party MPs of Rajya Sabha today passed a resolution to merge their party with BJP. YS Chowdary, CM Ramesh, TG Venkatesh, the TDP MPs from Andhra Pradesh and lone party MP from Telangana Garikapati Mohan Rao passed the resolution following their decision to quit the party and join BJP.
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YS Chowdary is the leader of the party in Rajya Sabha, and CM Ramesh is the deputy leader. Earlier three of the four MPs had met Vice President of India and Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu and submitted their resignation from the party, confirming the speculations in media about the move. GM Rao could not do the same due to an injury, but he has signed the resolution to merge the party with BJP.
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The resolution signed by the 4 MPs say that they are proposing to merge the Legislature Party of TDP in Rajya Sabha to merge with Bharatiya Janata Party under para 4 of the tenth schedule of the Constitution. The resolution says that inspired and encouraged by the impeccable leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the developmental policies pursued by him in the overall interest of the nation, they have decided to merge with BJP with immediate effect.
The tenth schedule of the constitution deals with disqualification of legislators in case of defections. The para 4 says that if a party merges with another party, the grounds of disqualification will not apply.
Another TDP MP in Rajya Sabha, Thota Sitarama Lakshmi was also speculated to be shifting to BJP, but that didn’t happen today. On the other hand, the other MP Ravindra Kumar remains loyal to the party.
It may be noted that YS Chowdary is under investigation in a PMLA case. He is accused in a bank fraud amounting to Rs 6000 crore using more than 120 shell companies. In April this year, ED has attached assets worth ₹315 crore linked to him in the case. CM Ramesh is also facing probe for suspicious transactions. Last year Income Tax department had raided multiple locations linked to the MP in the case.
With today’s development, TDP’s strength in Rajya Sabha has reduced to 2 from 6, while it has only 3 MPs in the Lok Sabha.