Hyderabad: With two-thirds of the party MLAs seeking merger with ruling TRS in Telangana, Congress state unit head N Uttam Kumar Reddy Thursday lashed out at Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, accusing him of 'purchasing' the legislators.
He also said Congress would now "fight in the courts and on the streets". In a jolt to the party, twelve of its 18 MLAs in the state Thursday met Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and gave him a representation seeking to merge their group with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), headed by Rao, popularly known as KCR.
"These Congress MLAs were puchased piece-by-piece by KCR. They are not a group", Reddy said after a dozen lawmakers from his party met the Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy seeking merger of Congress Legislature Party with TRS.
He alleged KCR had been purchasing these MLAs with his "ill-gotten money from contractors". Each time a Congress MLA defected to the TRS, the Congress had submitted disqualification petition to the Speaker, he said, adding, each of them should have been disqualified at that point of time itself.
"Now, they kept purchasing and last purchase of MLAs was this morning. They say they are a group, and two-third. Supreme Court has held in many cases that Speaker does not have the power to merge a national party into a regional party", Reddy said.
