Jagan's letter to President

Hyderabad: YSR Congress has urged the President Sri Ram Nath Kovind to intervene and stall the ongoing mockery of parliamentary democracy in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and Council where 21 defectors have been allotted seats in the treasury benches and four of them have inducted into the state cabinet.

In a five-page letter addressed to Ram Nath Kovind, YSR Congress Party President YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said, the Legislature Party meeting has unanimously adopted a resolution seeking action against all the defectors and dropping four turncoats who were inducted into the cabinet.

Unless action is taken against them we cannot attend the Assembly session as we would be part of the mockery of the democracy. We urge you to intervene and stop this blatant violation of the constitution by TDP, party MLA G Srikanth Reddy told reporters here on Friday quoting from the letter.

We have passed the resolution with a heavy heart but at the same time our conscience never permits us to sit in the Assembly and Council with members elected on our Party ticket sitting in the treasury benches and four of them holding cabinet rank though the Assembly Secretariat in its latest bulletin dated October 1, 2017 says that they all belong to our Party with a strength of 66 members.

Our demand is that all 20 MLAs and one MLC should be suspended immediately from the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council to safeguard the democratic values and we will not be attending the proceedings unless the Speaker and Chairman take action against them, he said.

The Assembly is for making laws and not for breaking laws as it is happening now in Andhra Pradesh and the four ministers C Adinarayana Reddy, R Sujay Krishan Ranga Rao, N Amarnath Reddy and Akhila Priya should be dropped and all the defectors should be disqualified to upkeep the value system of the democracy. Otherwise we will be guilty of perpetuating the assault on Constitution, he said.

The double standards of the TDP has been exposed with the resignation of MLC Chakrapani Reddy being accepted in a jiffy while no action being taken on others despite our repeated reminders at various forums, he said.

TDP which has raised a hue and cry and shouted murder of democracy when Nadendla Bhaskar Rao had staged a coup way back in 1984 taking MLAs into his fold, is now playing the same game of engineering defections, he said.

He also took objection to the remarks of Raghuveera Reddy on the Party decision to keep away from the Assembly session unless action is taken against 20 MLAs and one MLC, and said his views were not in the true spirit of democratic norms.

Like the Congress had created obstacles for YS Jagan Mohan Reddys Odarpu Yatra, now the TDP is trying to create hurdles for the Praja Sankalpa Yatra but we will overcome, he said.