BRS question’s Telangana Speaker for appointing defected MLA as PAC chairman

Hyderabad: BRS leaders are up in arms over the Telangana Speaker’s decision to appoint Serilingampally Congress MLA Arekapudi Gandhi as the chairman of the public accounts committee (PAC) on Monday.

Criticising the Telangana government’s for the move, Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao stated that there has been a tradition of appointing a people’s representative from the opposition party as the PAC chairman, like Congress MP KC Venugopal appointed as the chairman of PAC at the national level.

He urged Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to inform chief minister A Revanth Reddy not to “make a mockery of democracy”. Gandhi had won his seat on a BRS ticket in the 2023 Assembly election, but later defected to the ruling Congress.

BRS working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) questioned how the Congress appointed an MLA who defected from the opposition to the ruling party as the PAC chairman. He pointed out how Gandhi had won on a BRS ticket but defected to Congress later in Telangana.

KTR questioned the timing of the appointment, which happened on the day when the Telangana high court asked the Speaker to take a call on disqualifying three BRS MLAs who switched to Congress after winning the Assembly elections.

N Padmavathi Reddy has been appointed as the chairperson of the Committee on Estimates, and K Shankaraiah has been appointed as the Committee on Public Undertakings. Representatives from all political parties have been made members of the three committees.