December 24, 2018:

The Congress which is worried about the recent merger of the Congress Legislature Party in Council into the TRS body is all set to approach the High Court to direct Upper House chairman A. Swamy Goud to withdraw his approval of the move.

On Friday, four Congress MLCs had defected to the TRS and requested the merger. The state Congress leaders rushed to Mr. Goud & objected to the move.

The Chairman allowed the merger on Friday evening. The next day, the Congress, left with two MLCs in the 40-member House, lost its Opposition status.

The Congress has now prepared a petition to file in the HC. The legal department of the TPCC & Congress leader Shabbir Ali drafted the petition over the last couple of days.

The Congress' argument is that Mr. Goud does not have any right to merge two parties which, they contended, is the duty of the Election Commission.

The Congress is also planning to inform the court that the disqualification petitions it had given against defectors previously were kept aside for the last two years and the latest merger was immediately taken up.

The Congress wants to take the stand that Friday's merger was not possible as the petitions of disqualification were pending on two out of four MLCs who submitted a letter requesting the merger.

The Congress had submitted a request to Mr. Goud in 2016 & 2017 to disqualify Mr. M.S. Prabhakar Rao & Mr K. Damodar Reddy respectively when they joined the TRS.

Now, both of them signed the request for Friday's merger. The Congress' line of argument is: 'Can the Chairman take a decision on the merger when the disqualification petition by the Congress has not been addressed?'

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr. Shabbir Ali said, 'We will be filing the petition in the High Court in a day or two. This is really unfair. How can the Chairman take the decision on the merger? This is in the hands of the Election Commission. The Chairman did not take up the petitions that were given to disqualify our MLCs and kept it pending for the last two years. But, he has immediately taken up the merger petition that was given by the defectors from the Congress. All these questions will be raised in the court.'

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