They handed over a letter to Naidu claiming the defectors' merger with the BJP was illegal.
The Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) five remaining MPs met Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and handed over a letter asking him to initiate proceedings to disqualify its four Rajya Sabha MPs who merged with the BJP on Thursday. They attempted to convince Naidu, who is the de facto Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, that the defections were not legal.
The TDP delegation included the party's two remaining Rajya Sabha MPs, Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar and Thota Seetharama Lakshmi, and its three Lok Sabha MPs, Jayadev Galla, Srinivas Kesineni and Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu.
They met Naidu and pressed him to disqualify the four MPs who had merged with the BJP. The defectors' request for a merger had pointed out that since they constituted two-thirds of the TDP's strength in the Rajya Sabha, they would not face disqualification under the anti-defection law.
"Having gone through the law, what we now understand is the merger of a political party has to take place at only an organisational level. It cannot take place at legislature party level. Since TDP and BJP have not merged at the organisational level this is not a legal merger," Jayadev Galla told reporters after the meeting with Naidu.
"This is what we explained to the Vice President. He said that he will review the legalities of it and do whatever is necessary according to the law. We have to wait and see. We've given the letter, and we will be giving a letter to the Parliamentary Affairs Minister also," Galla added.
YS Chowdary, CM Ramesh, Garikapati Mohan Rao and TG Venkatesh had merged themselves with the BJP in a surprise move on Thursday. The Rajya Sabha website already lists them as BJP MPs. They had said the move was driven by the understanding that the d development of their state could happen only through cooperation with the Centre and not by getting into a confrontation with it.
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 "TDP MPs handing over a letter seeking their former colleagues' disqualification.")
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